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THE PEAK OF THE LOAD 



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THE FRENCH CENSOR ALLOWED 
THE MANUSCRIPT OF THIS BOOK 
TO PASS. HAVING ALREADY PER- 
MITTED THE PASSAGE OF THE 
LETTERS V/HICH COMPOSE IT. BUT. 
IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE PRES- 
ENT REGULATIONS REGARDING 
PHOTOGRAPHS. THE PHOTOGRAPHIC 
ILLUSTRATIONS WHICH WERE TO 
ACCOMPANY THE MANUSCRIPT 
WERE NOT ALLOWED TO 
LEAVE FRANCE 



\==__/ 



THE PEAK 
OF THE LOAD 



HE WAITING MONTHS ON THE HILLTOP 
FROM THE ENTRANCE OF THE STARS 
AND STRIPES TO THE SECOND 
VICTORY ON THE MARNE 



BY 

MILDRED ALDRICH 

AUTHOR OF "a HILLTOP ON THE MARNE," "tOLD IN A 

FRENCH GARDEN, AUGUST, I9I4," ** ON THE 

EDGE OF THE WAR ZONE " 




BOSTON 
SMALL, MAYNARD AND COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 



^«t^ 






Copyright^ 1918 
By Mildred Aldrich 



First printing, October, 19 18 
Fifteen thousand copies 






THE UNnrusiTV TRESS, CAMBWDOE, IT. S. A. 



TO THE BOYS OF THE 

• AMEX * 

WHO HAVE GONE OVER THE HILLTOP 
INTO THE FIGHTING LINE 



THE PEAK OF THE LOAD 



THE PEAK OF THE LOAD 



Dear Old Girl: ^^^^'^ ^^' '^'^ 

I HAVE had a rather busy two weeks, dur- 
ing which, for many reasons, I have not felt 
in the spirit to sit down and write you the 
long letter I know you expect in response to 
your great epistolary cry of triumph after 
the Declaration of War. 

Personally, after the uplift the decision 
gave me, came a total collapse and I had 
some pretty black days. I had to fight 
against the fear that we were too late, and 
the conviction that, if we were really to do 
our part at the front, the war was still to 
last not one year, but years. An army can- 
not be created in a day, and the best will 
in the world, and all the pluck I know our 
lads to have, will not make them, inside of 
at least a year, into a fighting army fit to 
stand against the military science of Ger- 
many, and do anything more serviceable than 
die like heroes. 

Besides, no matter from what point of 
view one looks at the case, it does make a 
difference to think that our boys are coming 
over here to go into this holocaust. 

[ I ] 



The Peak of the Load 

You must know that, even among officers 
in the army, who welcome with enthusiasm 
the entrance of the States into the ranks of 
the Alhes, there are plenty who are still 
optimistic about the war's duration, and who 
smile, and say: " Don't fret. Your boys will 
march in the triumphal procession. The gen- 
erous aid the States have given us earns them 
that right, but they cannot get ready to fire 
their guns in time to do much at the front." 

I hope you '11 take it in the right spirit 
when I say that I don't want it to end like 
that, and I am sure it won't. Personally I 
think the end is a long way off, and I can't 
tell you how our boys are needed. Besides, 
put it at the fact that Fate is to take a pro- 
portionate toll from our army — the other 
nations will have had nearly four years, if 
not quite four, before our losses begin. 

Our men are going to leave their women 
and children in safety, in a land that can 
never know the horrors of invasion. I don't 
want to dwell on that idea, but it is a comfort 
all the same. 

You say in your last that our boys are 
coming across the ocean " to die In a foreign 
land." Yes, I know. But they are coming 
to a country where they are already loved. 
Wonderful preparations are going to be 
made to care for them, and I do believe the 
United States, as a government and as a 
people, is going to make the great sacrifice 

[ 2 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

— economic, material and spiritual — which 
the situation demands of her in a manner 
which will make us all proud of her as a 
nation and will set a seal of nobility on the 
future of the race, and place our sort of 
democracy in the front ranks forever. 

More than that, I believe that the States 
will come out of it more united than they 
have ever been, and, I hope, with the many 
elements, resulting from our long wide- 
opened door of immigration, welded into a 
people. 

You and I, who love our country, in spite 
of, not because of, her faults, can surely at 
this stage of the game agree that the lessons 
we are going to learn are needed, and that 
out of the sorrow we know is before us may 
come results that could never have been 
achieved otherwise. 

I — who have been living so long in the 
midst of it, and have seen with what undying 
gaiety youth meets even these conditions — 
smile even through the certainty of later 
tears when I think of some aspects of the 
situation. Just reflect, for example, on the 
thousands of our boys who never dreamed 
of " coming to Europe," who don't even 
know its geography or its history, who never 
bothered about architecture or archaeology, 
who are going to make the voyage across 
the big pond. They are going to see foreign 
parts, hear foreign tongues, rub elbows with 

[ 3 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

races they never saw or thought of seeing 
before. They are going to have hard times, 
but crowds facing hard times together seem 
to get some fun out of it. They are going 
to be hardened into fine physical form by 
exercise. They are going to learn discipline, 
which, if the youth of any country ever 
needed, ours does, and they are going to 
learn the meaning of obedience, which the 
youth of America, accustomed to domineer 
over its elders, will be the better for 
learning. 

You see I always look for the compensa- 
tions, and, as I have told you before, if one 
looks hard enough, they are to be found. 

In my mental vision always hangs the idea, 
which so many are fearful to face — death 
is the common fate of us all. 

However, I never sit up straight at a 
thought so ordinary, with such calm philos- 
ophy, that a little imp does not, with a mali- 
cious gesture, sweep the mists out of my eyes, 
and make me realize that, from Macaulay — 
with his : 

" To every man upon this earth 

Death cometh soon or late, 
And how can man die better 

Than facing fearful odds 
For the ashes of his fathers 

And the temples of his gods ? " 

To the priest in his pulpit, the orator in his 
tribune — and me sitting before my type- 
[ 4 1 



The Peak of the Load 

writer — words are easy. Yet even when I 
smile, I know that you and I, and oh! how 
many million others, would rather be out 
there " somewhere In France " than sitting 
quietly, Inactively, at home, looking at the 
thick curtain which the necessary censor 
hangs before us, and waiting In patient sus- 
pense. The helpless looker-on In any 
struggle suffers more than those who are 
absorbed In its action. Is n't It a mercy that 
we believe this, whether It be wholly true or 
not? Also, though Macaulay sounds grandil- 
oquent, the Idea Is as true to-day as It was in 
the days of old Rome of which he wrote, 
for our boys are coming over not to fight 
for France, but to fight for Liberty, which 
is the very altar of our national existence, 
and for the same ideas for which our ances- 
tors — the founders of the original Union, 
now ashes, — laid down their lives. 

I don't mean this to be a sad letter. I am 
not exactly sad. My feeling is too big a one 
for that. But I think we are all of us learn- 
ing to-day to think of death more calmly, 
more continually, and more philosophically, 
than we have ever done. We are getting 
above the sentiment that it is a subject to be 
avoided, and arriving, quite naturally, at a 
mood which used only to be common to those 
who had reached an age at which It was 
natural and logical to feel that It might be 
encountered at any moment. I think it a 

[ 5 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

great advance anyway. But we will talk 
more about that another time. 

Things are pretty quiet here now. 

After the sunny weather which came in 
to celebrate the entrance of the Stars and 
Stripes came some pretty cold days, and on 
one of them, when I was shivering over a 
tiny fire made of green twigs, came the news 
that the i i8th had been badly cut up behind 
Solssons in the last advance, and that of all 
the little group who had stood about me in 
the library that sunny Sunday morning, but 
one was left. 

I just put my cap on and went out to walk. 

I kept telling myself that " it was all 
right," as I tramped along the road — that 
in half a century all of us In and about this 
great struggle, would be safely au dela, and 
that though men die, and women, too, the 
idea for which they die to-day is immortal. 
It looks easy on paper, but — my word! — 
it is not. I have to fight for it. You will 
soon have to, on your side of the water. 

Activity is the only help. I came back 
and worked like a dog — my dog does not 
work at all — tidying up all the stuff left 
over by the cantonnements, making heaps of 
straw and other debris on the side of the 
road and trying to burn it. 

I had given it some weeks to dry, but it 
had not done its part very well. The result 
is that it is not all burned yet. I light It half 
[ 6 ] 



■ The Peak of the Load 

a dozen times a day, and It smoulders. Some 
time I expect it will all be burned, and then 
we '11 spread It over the garden. So, Instead 
of putting any more words on paper, I ought 
to go out to rake that brush fire up again. 

Incidentally I '11 look off at the hill and 
down the valley. All the fruit trees are in 
flower. Down the hill towards Conde there 
are lovely pink clouds which mark the peach 
trees, and across the Morin, to the south, the 
plum trees are like dainty white mists. The 
alleys in the garden at Pere's look like a 
millinery show, all wreaths of apple blos- 
soms strung on the trellises that border the 
paths, and the magnolia parasol, which 
marks, with its spreading shape, the middle 
of the path, and under which Amelie sits in 
summer to darn my stockings, Is already 
putting on its young green cover. I am 
going to send you a photograph of that gar- 
den path one day. 

Of course we don't talk or think of any- 
thing here but the German retreat — Hln- 
denburg's famous strategic retreat. No one 
denies that the whole thing has been a great 
lesson in military science, were it not for its 
accompaniment by acts so unmilitary as to 
put another blot on the very word " Ger- 
man." 

Every one has a different way of regard- 
ing the fact that — possibly to avoid or out- 

[ 7 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

wit the threatened Allied spring offensive — 
Hindenburg felt it prudent to establish a 
new and stronger line of defence thirty kilo- 
meters in the rear of the line he had been 
holding so long, — a line to-day known as 
the Siegfried line. Whether or not we were 
outwitted history will tell us some day in 
the future — I suppose. The fact from 
which there is no getting away is that, al- 
though this move was rumoured even among 
civilians as long ago as July of last year, he 
succeeded in doing it, and that in spite of 
the fact that the Allied pursuit was prompt 
and more or less harassed his rear, and per- 
haps pushed him further and more rapidly 
than he at first Intended. 

Soldiers do not deny the cleverness of the 
move, but the acts of no military Import 
which accompanied the retreat fill us with 
horror. To destroy roads and bridges, to 
cut down forests and raze houses that could 
have served as shelters or military posts, 
well, any army would do that. But to poison 
wells, to uproot orchards, to carry off young 
girls — these are acts of war that are — to 
say the least — unmilitary. It Is no use talk- 
ing about it. But what a ruined northeast 
France It is ! Yet, In spite of that, almost 
the day after the retreat began the poor 
refugees who had left in August, 19 14, be- 
gan to hurry back, ready to reconstruct their 
devastated homes. It is a wonderful spirit, 
[ 8 ] 



I 



The Peak of the Load 



and thank God for it ! It is to be the saving 
of France. 

I wonder if mere words on paper can 
make any one reahze exactly what has hap- 
pened. I am sure that, horror-stricken as 
we have been by some of the details, we have 
no full sense of it, and how can you, merely 
reading it in letters of black and white in a 
newspaper, realize what it is hard for us to 
take in when it is told us by men who looked 
on it? Imagine 264 villages wiped off the 
map: towns like Chauny, a big industrial 
centre where there were bleach fields and 
chemical works, razed: 255 churches and 
38,000 houses reduced to mere heaps of rub- 
bish. Can you take it in? I confess that it 
is hard for me. 

I saw an officer who was in the pursuit 
who told me that the Boches left groups of 
women who had been outraged shut up in cel- 
lars in the ruined towns and villages, and 
carried off all the girls in their late 'teens. 
What a record for " Kultur " ! Does it not 
wipe the word out of all decent vocabularies 
and inscribe it among those forbidden and 
hidden away in pornographic dictionaries? 

The demoniac ingenuity of the destruction 
really surpasses all the demonstrations of 
German efficiency which this war has yet 
brought to notice. You have probably read 
that they sawed down all the orchards and 
did their utmost to render the fertile soil 

[ 9 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

for a long time unproductive. But that was 
rather a large order, I am afraid. At any 
rate they made inanimate objects their in- 
fernal aid. They left hidden mines to ex- 
plode. They left large trees standing, along 
where roads had once been, sawed almost 
through, so that the first strong wind would 
send them crashing on engineers at work re- 
pairing the roads or convoys passing in pur- 
suit. My word ! but these Germans give the 
traditional Old Nick all the trumps in the 
pack and beat him still in devilishness. 

You remember Coucy-le-Chateau, that 
marvellous ruin, which Violet-le-Duc con- 
sidered the finest specimen in Europe of 
medieval military architecture, and which 
after two hundred and fifty-six years of ex- 
istence was dismantled by Mazarin in 1652, 
and has since then been a public monument 
— a wonderful ruin? I am sure you have 
climbed over it, every one has, and sat in 
the shade and looked off at the view. I had 
a letter the other day from a cavalry officer 
who is now stationed there, in which he said, 
"You thought it a ruin when you saw it. 
You should see it now. The brutes!" 

In the meantime, the English are still out- 
side St. Quentin, to the very outskirts of 
which the French cavalry pushed in March. 
That has always been a fatal spot to the 
French. It is rather ironical to remember 
that it was near St. Quentin — which was 

[ 10 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

part of the dower of Mary, Queen of Scots, 

— that the French were defeated three hun- 
dred and fifty years ago by the allied Eng- 
lish, German and Flemish armies, and that 
there, in January, 1871, the French Armee 
du Nord was beaten by General Goeben of 
the Prussian forces. I shall feel more easy 
in my mind once the English are in the town, 
although we hear that it is largely destroyed 

— another big factory town — a sort of 
French Lowell or Lawrence — gone. 

In your last letter you reproach me be- 
cause I say "nothing about Russia." Yes, 
I know — Russia is our "great delusion." 
What can one say? I have never known 
much about Russia. I used to think I did. 
Most of the Russians I knew were revolu- 
tionary men who were political exiles here. 
But I have been no greater fool about it 
than most of the governments of this world. 
What can I say except that I suppose they 
are going to fail us — and then what ? Well, 
one thing Is certain, the curtain is getting 
torn and we are likely to know more about 
the Russians than we have ever known — to 
our cost. You need not bother to twit me 
that I used to say the " Russians were a great 
people." Of course I did, and I say it still. 
They may not prove It until I have gone on, 
but that is not important. 

You may have the laugh on me. But is 
it worth while? You have It on a lot of big 

[ II ] 



The Peak of the Load 

people. Let that content you. Besides, the 
only thing you ever had against the Russians 
was that they were " queer," and that their 
language was "hard to learn." And then 
you did not like the paintings they exhibited 
at the Salon. My reasons for liking them 
were better than yours for disliking them. 
I suppose that I shall find excuses for them 
if the very worst that can happen comes to 
pass. So don't think you can take any rise 
out of me on that subject. There are a 
great many other things that I think about 
which I do not write to you. To begin with, 
the censor would v/ork on my letters with his 
ink brush, and you would be none the wiser, 
and I would have bothered myself in vain. 



[ 12 ] 



II 

May 1,1917 

I HAD hardly mailed my last letter to you 
when things got very exciting here again. 

Early in the morning of April 24 — that 
was Tuesday of last week — we heard that 
the cavalry was trotting Into the valley again, 
and that we were to have the 32nd Dragoons 
quartered on us. 

Naturally, the first thing I said was, 
"What a pit}^ it Isn't the 23rd," which was 
so long with us In the winter that we felt It 
was really our regiment. When the 32nd 
began to ride in we learned that the 23rd 
was not far off — only five miles down the 
valley at La Chapelle, just opposite Crecy- 
en-Brle. 

Well, I could not complain, for I had an- 
other charming young officer in the house — 
another St. Cyr man, a lieutenant with a 
"J^" to his name — a man a little over 
thirty, and very chic. 

On Wednesday — that was the 25th — I 
was sitting in the library trying to work, 
when I heard an unusual movement in the 
road, and looked out to see a group of five 
officers of the 23rd, followed by a couple of 

[ 13 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

orderlies, dismounting at the gate — coming 
to make an afternoon call — all booted and 
spurred and fresh-gloved and elegant, as if 
there were no such thing as war, though they 
were burned and bronzed by the campaign 
from which they had but just retired. 

It was good to see them again, especially 
the Aspirant, and though I would have liked 
to hear all the details of the famous " strate- 
gic retreat," I got only a few, as of course 
you know it is forbidden the soldiers to talk 
to civilians, and a good thing, too. 

However, I did hear a few interesting 
things, one of the most striking being that 
when the French cavalry dashed through 
Noyon, the poor French people did not rec- 
ognize them. The population in the invaded 
district was waiting for the famous pantalon 
rouge. They did not even know that their 
army had changed its uniform, and when 
they saw the blue-grey cavalry coming they 
thought it was still the enemy and ran to 
hide again. 

They told me that the joy of these poor 
people who had been two years and a half 
under the German heel, when they finally 
realized that it was their own army which 
had arrived, was pathetic. 

Hardly had the group of officers taken 
leave, and ridden up the hill, when Lieuten- 
ant de G came in to sit down for a little 

chat about home and children. I can't tell 

[ H ] 



The Peak of the Load 

you how these men like to talk about home. 
In the course of the conversation I made 
arrangements with him to have some of his 
horses and men help in the fields the next 
morning, for the work here is terribly 
behind. 

When he went down the hill to dinner I 
rushed to tell Amelie, and to have everything 
ready for next morning, and you can imagine 
my disappointment, when, at nine. Lieutenant 

de G came in, quite disconsolate, to tell 

me that orders had arrived to sound '' Boots 
and Saddles " at half past six the next 
morning. 

I ought not to have been surprised for the 
officers of the 23rd had told me that it was 
not a long stay — only an etape. 

The next morning — that was last Thurs- 
day — was a beautiful day. I was up early. 

I met Lieutenant de G on the stairs, 

where he bowed over my hand, and made 
me such a pretty, graceful speech of thanks 
for my hospitality — you can count on any 
French soldier, from an officer down to the 
ranks, doing that. 

I had hardly got out into the garden after 
he left, when a detachment of the 23rd pulled 
up at the gate, and the soiis-officier in com- 
mand, saluted, as he said: "Aspirant B^ 's 

compliments. The 23rd is cantonning at 
Mareuil to-night. I am going ahead to ar- 
range the cantonnement. If it is possible 

[ 15 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

the Aspirant counts on calling on you this 
afternoon to make his adieux. We march 
again to-morrow," and with another salute 
the little troop galloped down the hill. 

The 23rd rode away at half past seven, 
and they passed the 6th Dragoons riding in, 
to take their places. 

The little body of cavalry that came up our 
hill was in command of a marechal des logis 
— a handsome, tall, slender lad of not over 
twenty, — who explained that it was only a 
twenty-four-hour rest for men and horses. 
They carried no kitchens at all, — no revict- 
ualment of any sort. Each man had two 
days' rations in his sac, and the horses car- 
ried their feed-bags and oats. 

It was a new kind of cantonnement for 
me, and the most picturesque I had ever 
seen. 

When everything had been arranged the 
marechal des logis came to the door and 
asked if I could conveniently put him up. 

I led him to his room, and you would have 
laughed if you could have seen his expres- 
sion when I showed him the big freshly 
made-up bed. 

"Am I going to sleep in that?" he ex- 
claimed, and then we both laughed as if it 
were a real joke. You see we need so little 
excuse to laugh these days. 

The weather was beautiful. 

The boys sat or lay all along the roadside 

[ 16 ] 



p 



The Peak of the Load 

in the sun, and the horses, relieved of all 
equipment, and well brushed, were tethered 
to the banks and in the courts, wherever 
there was a blade of grass — in fact they 
were " turned out to grass " for the first time 
since last fall, — while the soldiers ate and 
smoked and slept beside them, or rolled, 
frolicking like youngsters full of springtime 
spirit. It was the most unmartial, bucolic 
sight Imaginable. 

There was not much pasturage for the 
horses, and I looked at my lawn, and at what 
Louise calls the ^^ prairie ^^ under the fruit 
trees, and I went out in the road and cere- 
moniously invited as many of the best- 
behaved horses as could feed there to come 
In to lunch. 

The marechal des logis was writing letters 
in the salon when I led my little cavalcade 
along the terrace — they had selected the 
most obedient horses who did not even need 
halters — and he came out to say that It was 
a pity to trample my lawn — as if I cared 
for that ! 

You, who so adore horses, would have 
loved to see them. There was plenty of 
good feed. There was sunshine and shade, 
and they nibbled and snorted, while the sol- 
diers who had charge of them rolled on the 
grass and smoked. I did wish I could have 
got a snapshot for you, but no one had a 
camera. 

[ 17 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

As it was Thursday Louise was working 
in the garden — Thursday is her day. Sud- 
denly she shaded her eyes and looked down 
towards the Marne, and called out to me 

that Aspirant B was coming. Sure 

enough, there he was, coming on foot across 
the fields as if he had seven-league boots, 
and waving his cap. Mareuil, where the 
23rd had gone, is only two miles away. 

He arrived hot and breathless, to explain 
that, while he was not really out of bounds, 
still he had not asked permission and so had 
come on foot, and dared not stay long, but 
that he could not bear to leave the Seitie 
et Marne without coming ito say good-bye, 
as orders might come at any moment to 
advance, and no one had the faintest idea 
what their destination would be. 

I had half a moment's foolish hesitation, 
as I remembered that the niarechal des logis 
was in the salon. I did not know what the 
military etiquette was, or how officers like to 
meet unceremoniously. So I said : " Shall we 
sit out here, or will you come into the salon? 
The marechal des logis of the 6th is there." 

"Oh, let's join him, of course," replied 
the Aspirant. 

As I led the way I wondered how I was 
going to introduce them. I did not know the 
marechaVs name. But I need not have 
fretted. 

I opened the door. The marechal sprang 

[ 18 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

erect. The two youngsters both so tall, so 
slender and straight — saluted, flung their 
names at each other, thrust out their hands 
and gripped. Then they smiled, sat down, 
crossed their long legs, and fell to. It was 
like a drill — so exactly in unison — and so 
young and charming, that I just leaned back 
in my chair and listened and thought a lot. 

Don't you know how there used to be a 
tradition about "little Frenchmen"? I vow 
I don't know where they all are now. I 
thought of it Wednesday when the group of 
officers stood about in my salon — their 
heads almost to the rafters — and I thought 
of it again to-day as I saw these two twenty- 
year olds — both nearly six feet, if not quite. 

When the brief visit was over the lads 
parted like friends. 

As the Aspirant was saying good-bye on 
the lawn, and laughing at the idea of my 
having " the horses in to tea," as he called it, 
although I called it " spending the day," he 
directed my attention to the road across the 
field by which he had arrived, and I looked 
down. 

" Hulloa ! " he exclaimed. " Here comes 
the 23rd racing to visit its pet cantonnement 
at Huiry. You know, Madame, they never 
have been so happy anywhere else as they 
were in what they call ' ce jolt petit pays de 
Huiry: " 

Sure enough, there came Hamelin and 

[ 19 ] 



The PjEAK OF THE Load 

Vincent, who had lodged at Amelle's, and 
Basset and all the rest who had lived about 
us in December and January. 

So you see we had rather an exciting day. 

The result was that I was very tired, and 
I slept very soundly. 

As a rule when troops are here I always 
hear all the night movement. Whenever any 
officer in the house received a night message, 
in spite of all their precautions, I invariably 
heard the cyclist arrive. But that night I 
heard nothing. I waked at six. I opened 
my shutters. The sun was shining brightly. 
The morning was clear and warm. I looked 
out, wondering at the silence. I expected to 
see the horses being groomed all along the 
road. To my surprise all the stable doors 
were wide open — no one in sight, — no 
horses, no soldiers anywhere. 

When Amelie appeared she said the order 
had come at midnight. They had marched 
at three — and I had not heard a sound. 
Am I not getting used to a military life? 

But I must give you some evidence that 
the race famed for its politeness has not lost 
any of the quality in the war, and all its 
hurry. 

Although Lieutenant de G , who left 

Thursday morning, had formally thanked 
me for my hospitality, within twenty-four 
hours I received the following note from 
him. 

[ 20 ] 



I 



The Peak of the Load 

Madame: 

I must again express to you all my gratitude for 
the charming welcome you extended to me under 
your roof. Our roving life did not allow us to stay 
long at Huiry, but, thanks to you, we shall always 
cherish a charming recollection of our too short visit. 

And, twenty-four hours after the 6th rode 
away in the night, I received the following 
letter from the young marechal des logis. It 
seems to me such a pretty letter for a lad of 
twenty that you deserve to see it. 

With the Army, April 28, 1917 
Madame: 

I hope you will have the kindness to excuse me 
if, before my departure this morning, I did not have 
the opportunity of thanking you for the charming 
welcome you extended to me in your pretty home. 
It was late when I came in last night, and it was 
still dark when we took leave of your dear little 
village this morning, and I was therefore unable to 
see you, to my deep regret, and to express to you in 
person all the gratitude I felt, and my deep joy to 
find that the sympathy which the Americans, our 
new allies, express for us, is no vain word. Your 
kindness to us all was the best of evidence, and I beg 
you to believe, Madame, that the sentiment is 
reciprocated. 

All my men, as well as my two comrades and I, 
were deeply touched by the welcome extended to us 
in your village, and especially by you in person, and 
we should have been only too happy had we been 
able to stay with you longer. We are much less 
comfortable to-night than we were last night, but 
a soldier is forced to consider himself comfortable 
anywhere. All the same he is more than happy, now 
and then, to find himself among kind people who 

[ 21 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

offer him the comforts of home of which he has 
been deprived for nearly three years. Even our 
horses are less gay than they were yesterday. This 
afternoon they had no green lawn to nibble. 
I beg you, dear Madame, etc. 

Marechal des logis G . 

The politeness of these French boys and 
their aptness in writing letters promptly is 
remarkable. It is a national characteristic. 
It is a great contrast to the American 
sans gene manner, which surprises French 
people. For example, all the French sol- 
diers nursed in our little ambulance write 
Immediately they get back to the Directrice, 
the Sisters, and their special nurse to reiter- 
ate the thanks they have so profusely ex- 
pressed before leaving, and anyone to whom 
I have shown the smallest courtesy while 
there writes to me. The little hospital has^ 
never sheltered but one American. When he 
returned to his post every one gave him an 
address, and every one expected a postcard 
from him, at least. Of course he could not 
write French, but he could send a picture 
postcard with his name, and a line which he 
knew I would render Into French. No word 
ever came back. Dear Soeur Jules is sure 
he is dead. I never see her but she asks: 

"Have you had news from ?" And 

when I say, *' No," she shakes her head sadly, 
and exclaims, " Poor lad ! Of course he has 
been killed. Poor nice boy ! We were so at- 

[ 22 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

tached to him." I let It go at that. It is 
so hard to explain that it is very American. 

Lovely day — so good after the terrible 
winter. 

I am already planting peas and beans and 
potatoes. But the flower garden will not be 
very pretty this year, I lost so many rose 
bushes In the awful long spell of January 
and February cold. But what of that? Po- 
tatoes are the only chic thing this year. 
They are planted everywhere — on the lawn 
at the chateau, In the front gardens, under 
the fruit trees. I was tempted to plant 
them on my lawn, only that would have been 
pretentious, as Pere had more land than we 
needed, and It would have cost more to turn 
up my lawn than the mere patriotic look of 
the thing was worth. 



[ 23 ] 



Ill 

May i8, 1917 
Just the loveliest day you can imagine. 
When I went into the garden early this 
morning I did wish you were here. A soft 
puffy breeze was blowing, and a thin haze 
veiled the sun. There was only one word 
for it — divine. I never see the country 
looking as it did at that moment that I do not 
long to own a big camera and become an 
expert with it. It would only be in that way 
one could ever get a proper picture of it. 
It is so wilfully changeable that to do it jus- 
tice — to catch it at its best — the camera 
would have to be on the spot — ever ready. 

We have had a week of really hot weather. 
It has been good for planting, and I 've 
planted carrots and turnips and beets and 
onions, tomatoes and cucumbers, and if this 
lasts, I am going to try golden bantam corn. 
What do you think of that for a farmer? 
Hush — Louise does the hard work, and I 
boss it. I sit in the field on a camp chair 
with the seeds in a basket, and a green um- 
brella over my head, and big gloves on my 
hands, while Louise grovels in the dirt and 
carries out my ideas. I get terribly tired, 

[ 24 ] 






The Peak of the Load 

and very red In the face, but Louise, brown 
as a berry, comes out fresh as possible. 

Well, anyway, I am going to have some- 
thing to eat — in time — and that comforts 
me. 

At noon to-day it clouded over, and a cold 
wind came up which drove me indoors. 
Though it is as cold here as outside, still 
I am out of the wind, and that is how it 
happens that, though I have nothing much 
to write about, I am going to try to make a 
letter. Everything in the world is still — 
but though we hear no sound of cannon, I 
have the thought of it always with me. It 
Is more persistent than the poor. 

I have been looking over some of your 
letters, and I find that you have often asked 
me questions about my beasties, and because 
I have almost always had other things to 
write about I have never got to telling you 
about anything in the beastie line, except 
cats — and you got that, you remember be- 
cause you were nasty about my efforts to 
" wake up the States," which had been hardly 
less successful at that time than dear Lord 
Roberts' great " Wake Up, England!" 

Well, since you want to hear about 
beasties, so be it. 

Of course, you remember that in the old 
days I never had any beasties in the apart- 
ment, except birds. When I came out into 
the country to live I did not see any place 

[ 25 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

either in my little house or in my new life 
for that huge cage and the twenty birds that 
lived In it, In Paris. 

I had loved them In the Paris apartment. 
High up in the air, with that broad open 
space across the Montparnasse cemetery to fill 
the wide balcony with sunlight and warmth, 
they had seemed quite in the picture. But 
the Idea of caged birds on this hilltop seemed 
to me silly. What happiness could a cage 
full of birds have when surrounded by sing- 
ing birds in liberty? Also every one out here 
kept cats. 

In Paris, high up above the street, the 
morning concerts had been the only gay thing 
in the sad and lonely house. I learned to 
love them. I loved giving them their bath 
in the morning, doing up their house for 
them, and preparing their meals. I loved 
seeing them flying about, dancing and singing, 
swinging and balancing, and eating. 

I loved believing they were happy. But 
I could not Imagine them happy out here, 
so they did not come with me. I gave them 
and their gilded palace to some one whom 
they had always known, and now and then 
I still go to see them. 

So when I came out here I had no beastles. 

The first one I had was a dog. He was 
a beautiful Airedale — a big dog with a dear 
chestnut-coloured head and legs and belly, 
and a nicely fitting, undulated, black jacket. 

[ 26 ] 



I 



The Peak of the Load 

But, alas ! I did not have him long, and it 
was altogether a sad experience. 

When he arrived he was homesick. 

Did you ever see a homesick dog? Or, 
what is worse, did you ever live with one? 
For days, before he learned to love me, he 
followed me about in a patient, resigned way 
which made me pretty sad. I had not had 
much experience in owning beasties, except 
birds. I had to get acquainted as well as he. 
It was hard on both of us. Besides, the 
house was all fresh and clean, and, as I was 
determined that he should feel that it was 
as much his home as mine, he was allowed 
everywhere, and brought in a lot of dirt, and 
my habit of having everything in apple-pie 
order — by the way, what kind of order is 
that? — got a shock. 

But I grew used to all that, and reconciled 
to it, as he became attached to me, and, even 
in the little time he stayed, I got so that I did 
not mind when he leaped all over me, and 
wiped his muddy paws, and he could not 
walk out with me without embracing me 
every few minutes. I was so grateful to him 
for showing pleasure in my society that for 
a while I did not even try to break him of it. 
I ended by getting deeply attached to him, 
and he to me. I was so proud of him. I 
loved walking out with him, carrying his 
leash and whip, with a whistle in my sweater 
pocket. He was naturally obedient. He 

[ 27 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

always walked close to my heels except when 
I told him to " go," and then he was off like 
a flash. But he never went out of sight. If 
he reached a turn, he stopped to look back 
and see if I were coming, and if I hid he 
dashed back and sniffed around until he 
found me. Of course this is all common- 
place to people who have always had dogs 
of their own. But it was a new experience 
to me. 

If he saw anyone coming towards me he 
retired quietly to my side — not as if afraid, 
but as if to assure himself that I was not 
going to be molested. For a few weeks that 
was all right. He seemed gentle and was as 
playful, once he was domiciled, as a small 
dog. 

I had never had a watch-dog — didn't 
know anything about them. I had him for 
company. But one day Amelie was sweep- 
ing the terrace. Argus was lying in the sun. 
I was standing at the gate, which was closed. 
The postman came up the road and started 
to open the gate. Argus was there in one 
bound. He snarled, then growled deep down 
in his throat. The man did not come in. 

Amelie laughed aloud. Instinctively I 
said, "No, no, Argus!" but Amelie simply 
screamed at me: ^'' Laissez donc,^^ and she 
patted him on the head. " At last," she said. 
" I was wondering if that dog was anything 
but beautiful. Pat his head," she com- 
[ 28 ] 



I 



The Peak of the Load 



manded, " and tell him he Is a good dog." 
I obeyed orders, and Argus wagged his tall, 
and strutted, and from that day he was the 
terror of the commune. He never passed 
anyone on the road without growling, and 
he barked at every one who passed the gate. 

Personally I thought he carried his ardour 
too far, since he could not bear a stranger 
near. He barked when they arrived, and 
he kept It up. Every one was afraid of him, 
though I was always convinced that he was 
not a dangerous dog. He never attacked 
anyone. On the road he always came the 
Instant he was called, and patiently allowed 
himself to be leashed. 

I confess I never got at his psychology — 
he did not live long enough. As I say, he 
never attempted to attack anyone, though he 
did attack a big dog. He never attached 
himself to anyone outside of the household. 
I had heaps of theories about him. At times 
I thought there was a savage strain In him. 
At other times I Imagined he was as afraid 
of people as they were of him. But I don't 
know. 

When he was 111, and I sent for the veter- 
inary, Argus was upstairs lying at my bed- 
room door when the doctor arrived. I called 
him. He came half-way down the stairs and 
stood barking. The doctor said: *' As hand- 
some an Airedale as I ever saw, but I would 
not touch him for a fortune." 

[ 29 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

"But, doctor," I said, "he's perfectly 
gentle." 

"With you, perhaps. I can't touch him." 

So I went upstairs with the dog, and he 
let me tie up his nose, and I held him while 
the doctor examined him. 

Well — he died. Never mind about that. 
I don't like even now to remember it. I like 
to think of him as we used to walk out to- 
gether, when he was the first comrade of my 
new life. 

Oh, yes, I have another dog now, but he 
is just a dog to me. I like him well enough, 
and play with him, but my heart Is not set 
on him as It was on my big dog of whom I 
was so proud. 

This dog's name is Dick. He is a big 
black poodle and a perfect fool. He Is what 
the French call ^' pas mechant pour deux 
soiiSy^ just a common or garden fool. He 
is a thoroughbred, but he has never been 
trained at all, and as he was nearly, If not 
quite, four years old when he came — with 
his character — training has been impossible. 
He was bought when a baby as a plaything 
for a child at Couilly. When the war broke 
out, his family went to Switzerland and left 
Dick a boarder at Amelle's. At Couilly he 
left a bad reputation. A child had hit him 
with a stick and hurt him, and Dick had 
sprung on her — the one naughty act of his 

[ 30 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

life, but it was enough to give him a bad 
name — so he had to come up here to live. 

No one knows everything about a dog 
except after long years of experience. 
Though he is the silliest, gentlest, most play- 
ful dog in the world, though he adores chil- 
dren, and the cats sleep all over him, I have 
to own that he has never forgotten the child 
at Couilly who struck him with the big stick, 
and the very sight of her to-day — after more 
than five years — brings out a quality of 
ugliness in him that he never shows at any 
other time. Apart from that one trait he is 
a comic, frolicsome dog, whose delight in 
life is to " go," and whose dream of happi- 
ness is to have anyone, no matter whom, 
throw stones for him. 

He was boarding at Amelie's when I came 
here. While Argus lived he never came near 
the house. But after Argus had gone 
Amelie used to bring him down here with 
her, and I got used to seeing him about. 
Neither Amelie nor Abelard had been con- 
tent that there was no dog here at night, and 
finally I consented to let Dick sleep in the 
kennel; he has been sleeping there ever since. 
The only protection he gives is to bark when 
anyone approaches the house, and that is 
really all that is necessary. When he barks 
furiously in the night — as every one knows 
his voice, — someone comes to be sure that I 
am all right. 

[ 31 3 



The Peak of the Load 

When I say he barks at every one, that 's 
not quite true. He used to bark at every 
one, but, for some reason, since we have had 
so many soldiers cantonned here, he never 
barks at a poilu. It is the only exception. 
He barks at the children, at the postman, at 
the neighbours he sees every day on the 
road, but he never barks in these days at a 
common soldier. Droll, that, I think! I 
have asked him to explain himself, but I am 
too stupid to understand. 

Of course Melie has a big dog — a black 
retriever — who, though he is already huge, 
is hardly more than a puppy. He came last 
winter, and I named him Marquis, and it 
was at once abbreviated into Kiki. Amelie 
brought him in her apron one night when 
he was about as big as a small cat, and 
showed him to Khaki and Didine. Khaki 
gave one look at him, and asked for the 
door. He shrugged his shoulders as he went 
out with very stiff legs and a line of bristling 
hair down his back, as much as to say "An- 
other? Dear me! " But Didine went up to 
him as he lay on Melie's knee, examined 
him, and deliberately cuffed him first on one 
side of his head, and then on the other, and 
hard cuffs, too. Marquis has grown up since 
then, but he has no taste for cats. 

Although Marquis is still only a puppy, he 
is already much bigger than Dick, and Dick 
is still just as much of a puppy — and will 

[ 32 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

be to the end of his days — and it is lovely 
to see them play together — such races and 
boxing matches as they have ! They don't 
always observe the rules of the Marquis of 
Queensbury to be sure, but they never get 
cross over their game. Marquis is just as 
good a sport as Dick, but though he is heav- 
ier he does not tire so easily, and often when 
Dick retires to his corner to get his breath 
back and lies with his tongue hanging out. 
Marquis goes and pulls him into the ring by 
his hind leg. 

So there you have the dogs that run with 
me when I cross the fields. I have to keep 
them with me as all dogs must be leashed 
or muzzled. I carry muzzles and whip and 
whistle when I walk, and, as they are both 
obedient to the whistle, I can call them if I 
see anyone approaching, and get them on 
their leashes if I don't have time to muzzle 
them. Some time, if I get a chance, I '11 ask 
them to send you their pictures. 

Though I don't have birds, I have hens 
and chickens. I have four hens setting at 
Amelie's now. I don't want anything of that 
sort round here. So I have arranged an imi- 
tation of a basse coiir and hen-house at 
Amelie's. You 'd laugh if you could see it. 
I began it last summer. I sent Amelie to 
town to buy a dozen chickens — ten of them 
proved to bie cocks, so we fed them to be 
eaten, and bought another dozen, with 

[ 33 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

hardly better luck, except in the matter of 
winter food. I began the spring with a 
rooster and seven hens, and every one of 
those hens shall set if she wants to. Amelie 
pulls a long face, and says, " How are you 
going to feed them?" Well, if I can't, I 
can eat them, or give them to other people 
to eat. 

Food is a very interesting question in these 
days. Besides, hens are about the only 
creatures I can contemplate eating with 
equanimity. They are amusing enough at 
feeding time, but they are ugly, selfish, un- 
lovable birds, except when they have a brood 
of fluffy little ones about their feet, and then 
they are adorable. 

The most amusing experience I have ever 
had was with goats, — and that one experi- 
ence impressed on me the fact that I 'd need 
several more years of training to become a 
real farmer, or a stock breeder, — perhaps 
even another incarnation. 

When milk got short it was a serious 
dilemma, and the future looked even more 
serious. Milk Is a very important item in 
my diet, and how we were to get through 
another winter short of milk was a question. 

One day Amelie remarked that if we had 
a goat, that it would be some help, as she 
and Pere liked goat's milk. So, one day, at 
Meaux, I told her I'd make her a present 
of a goat, if she could find one. T was 

[ 34 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

amazed when she came back to the wagon 
carrying the cunningest little beastie in her 
arms you ever saw. 

*'Why, Melie," I cried, "that won't give 
any milk! " 

" Give it time," she replied. " It is such a 
pretty one." 

So I named it Jeannette, and it came to 
live " at the farm." 

It was as frisky as a kitten and we all 
made a plaything of it. It followed Melie 
up and down from her house to mine, and 
when it got to know the way it came by it- 
self to call. I was eternally catching it in 
my garden, standing on its hind legs, nib- 
bling my rose bushes, and picking it up in 
my arms and carrying it home. But it was 
so fascinating on its stiff, wooden, peglike 
legs, and it side-stepped so gracefully when 
I was catching it, and danced on its hind 
feet, and butted at me sideways, that I could 
not get cross. 

Sometimes I 'd hear a rustle in the hedge 
as I was reading in the shade, and, going out 
to the gate to see what was trying to get 
through, would find Jeannette standing on 
her hind legs, eating the old hedge with all 
her might. I did n't mind that. It did not 
hurt the hedge to be trimmed. But when 
she began to eat pansies, roses and gera- 
niums, I drew the line, and protested. I 
drove her home one day, and began to ask 

[ 35 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

myself if other goats had as much liberty as 
Jeannette, and decided that they did not and 
that, in fact, she was being badly brought up. 

I looked over the fields and saw goats 
nibbling, each with a long rope attached to a 
stake. 

So I went up to Amelie's to have a serious 
talk about the upbringing of her goat. I 
found Pere — it was just afternoon — taking 
his nap in a big chair with Jeannette hugged 
in his arms as she lay on his knees. 

I had to laugh. It was not a moment to 
argue. 

The proper moment came a few days 
later. 

It was early in the morning. I heard some 
one talking angrily in the road, and it only 
took a little listening to discover that Jean- 
nette had been in a neighbour's garden and 
made a good meal of peas. The owner was 
angry, and I did not blame her. It was one 
thing for Jeannette to destroy my garden 
or Pere's, but quite another matter when she 
went trespassing and laid us liable to a 
proces. 

This time I stiffened my lips — I hate to 
argue with Melie — and just went at the job. 
I emphatically stated that it was absurd to 
let a destructive animal like a goat roam at 
liberty, that goats were usually attached, and 
that there was no reason why Jeannette 

[ 36 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

should not be. By the time I had done, 
Melie was In tears. 

" Poor Jeannette," she sobbed. " She 
loves her liberty, and I love mine, and can 
sympathize. Poor Jeannette, I know just 
how she feels." 

Of course I had to say, " Sorry, Melie, 
but we did not buy the goat for a plaything, 
and you know as well as I do that she can- 
not always run free, so one time is as good 
as another. There is plenty of place for her 
to eat. There is the little meadow out under 
the trees where she can be tied up. She will 
be near the house, and the grass there is full 
of all sorts of good things — dandelions, 
chicory, sanfoin, and there is the court here, 
and there is the little enclos at the top of the 
hill where we put the horse and donkey, and 
there is the grass land up the hill, and when 
once the cassis is gathered, she can be put 
there." 

''Oh," replied Amelie, "there are places 
enough, if it must be done." 

It was done, but it was too late to be done 
with comfort to anyone. Jeannette had been 
made a family pet. She was used to com- 
pany. Wherever we put her she b-1-laated 
for hours at a time, unless one of us went 
and sat with her. I protested, but I used 
to catch Amelie taking her sewing to sit with 
Jeannette, and Pere used to go and lie near 
her on the ground to take his noon nap — 

[ 37 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

and as long as she lived, she would never be 
cured of that longing for society, if not for 
liberty. 

Well, the time came when Jeannette be- 
came a mother. It was about the quickest 
performance I ever kndw of. It was a 
Thursday. Louise was working in the gar- 
den, as is usual on all Thursdays. She had 
gone to Pere's to carry a wheelbarrow of 
grass — we had cut the lawn. I saw her 
returning without the wheelbarrow on a 
quick run, calling as she came, " Is there 
any hot water? Jeannette has got twins!" 

I did not wait for Louise to get the hot 
water. I just sprinted — in my way — for 
the stable. There were the little long-legged 
things — walking, if you please, while Jean- 
nette looked over her shoulder at them in 
wide-eyed surprise. Talk about cunning 
things ! They beat all I had ever seen. 
They were both white. One had a thin black 
line down his spine to his cute little stub of a 
tail, and the other had a similar black line 
half as long. On the spot I named them — 
it 's my way — Pierre and Paul. 

For a few weeks those little goats were 
my every-day amusement. They were play- 
ful as kittens. We used to attach Jeannette 
up the road in an open field, and leave Pierre 
and Paul with her, but if I dared to heave 
in sight, both the little beasties rushed to 
meet me. Then Jeannette set up a yell, and 

[ 38 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

I had to catch them and take them back. 
Then I was as bad as Amelle, for I would 
sit in the shade and watch them. The field 
was up a bank, and they used to butt each 
other down, and dance and do side-steps un- 
til I used to call Amelie to come and look at 
them, and we would both sit, like a pair of 
geese, and laugh. I forgot as much as she 
ever had what the goat was bought for. 

Pierre was a bit more venturesome than 
Paul. He was always the leader. The only 
queer thing was that they never varied their 
methods. For example, they would both 
come close to the door, and turning their 
heads sideways, look in. Then Pierre ven- 
tured in, and Paul followed. The dining- 
room was always darkened in the daytime to 
keep it cool, but the door was open. Pierre, 
followed by Paul, would come and look, and 
then, although there was no sill, bound in 
as though over a barrier, and, after a mo- 
ment's hesitation, Paul did the same thing. 
There was hardly a day they did not come, 
and they never varied the antic, nor failed, 
when I went to catch them and put them in 
the stable at night, to side-step, bound side- 
wise on their hind legs, and butt at me with 
such a pretty turn of the head. But no one 
ever drew a picture or made an image of a 
goat in any other movement, so all goats 
must do it. Only these were the first with 
which I had ever been intimate. 

[ 39 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

Well, all country idyls end In tragedy. 

Last Saturday — Saturday is market day 
at Meaux — after I had taken my coffee, 
which I got myself, as Amelie and Pere had 
arranged to go to market early on account 
of the heat — I went up to the pasture to see 
why Jeannette was crying so. I found her 
still tied in the stable instead of in the pas- 
ture, as I had expected, and there was no 
Pierre and Paul. 

I had a sort of sudden premonition. I 
went back, and sat in the garden until I heard 
the wagon coming. I gave one look at 
Melie's red eyes. I did not have to ask. 
I knew that Pierre and Paul had gone to 
market. 

Jeannette did not get over crying for days. 

Well, as Pere remarked, '' She was bought 
to give us milk." 

You see, next time I '11 know how to bring 
up a goat. I can only be thankful I don't 
get attached to chickens. I 've that much 
luck. 

You can't call this a war letter, can you? 
The real absolute truth is that just now it is 
hard to believe there is any war, it is so calm 
and still here, and the nights are heavenly. 
I often sit out until midnight, and I have even 
fallen asleep with my head on my arms, 
simply hating to come indoors and leave all 
the beauty of the night. I wish often that I 
had one of those tents in which the Virginia 

[ 40 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

boys slept on our common. I think it will 
be the next thing I present myself. 

You can never realize the wonder of the 
nights here until you see them. It is not dark 
until after ten, — summer-time, of course. 
There is no sound except from the passing 
trains, and nothing breaks the line of the 
hills, except, now and then, the end of a 
searchlight from the other side, a thin line 
only, but it visualizes " war," reminding us 
that the watch is kept. 

Of course we have all been bitterly disap- 
pointed again that the push does not go on. 
We don't understand, but we must have faith 
in those who do, — or we hope, do. 



[ 41 ] 



IV 

June jSj 1917 

I HAVE been so busy learning to be a 
farmer that during the last three weeks I 
have had no time to write letters. I have 
read the newspapers, tried to be patient, and 
been up to Paris. That's my life. 

We have had lovely hot weather and 
everything is growing well. Still, in spite 
of rains in May, just after I wrote to you, 
which seemed to me sufficient to wet the 
ground, every one is yelling for rain. I con- 
fess the ground does look dry. 

Yesterday nine chicks came out of a nest 
of thirteen eggs. I was delighted, but 
Amelie is disappointed. They ought all to 
have hatched. I recognized that, when she 
called my attention to it. Until then I had 
thought it a brave showing. I shall do 
better next time, or, if I don't, be wiser in 
speech. 

I went up to Paris on June 3rd and stayed 
a whole week, which was unusual for me, but 
I had work to do there and could not seem 
to get back. I wish you could have seen my 
garden when I did. It was like a wilderness 
of flowers. It looked absolutely unkept, 

[ 42 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

although It was clean and tidy. But no one 
would dream of cutting the roses when I am 
not here, and the Gloire de Dijon over the 
front door, and the big Pink Rover over the 
dining-room, had bloomed and bloomed and 
shed their petals until the air was full of 
them. The grass was high, the geraniums 
and pinks a mass of colour. I would not 
have dreamed that a week or ten days could 
have done the work it had, although, of 
course, It was hot weather. 

In Paris no one talked of anything but the 
taking of Messines, and now that the Allies 
have the three heights — Bapaume taken in 
March, Vimy In April, and Messines last 
Monday, — every one Is hoping for another 
phase of a general offensive. Wise and well- 
informed people say it is impossible, and the 
gospel of patience is preached everywhere. 
All the same Messines was a great affair, 
one of the most astounding bits of prepara- 
tion the war has yet seen. 

We surely needed that bit of encourage- 
ment, with all the disquieting things that are 
going on In Russia, and with the perpetual 
disturbances of the Socialists and Pacifists, 
who find it so hard to understand even yet 
that peace to-day can only be a German 
peace, with Germany not only victor, but 
conqueror. Before this war can end well 
all the hopes of any decency or generosity or 
good breeding or justice on the part of the 

[ 43 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

Germans must be wiped out of the minds of 
every race she is fighting. The Allies must 
quit talking, quit explaining their position, 
which is clearly known now, and get down to 
work. This struggle will never be settled 
except by guns and aeroplanes, and it is waste 
effort to talk about Germany until she is 
beaten to her knees, and until she is, though 
this war lasts twenty years, it will never end. 
As a well-known American man said to one 
of my friends in Paris, " Our boys must not 
come over here to get licked," and unless 
Germany is licked they will be. 

Day before yesterday we began to gather 
cherries. They are not very plentiful, and 
as for prunes — almost none. However, we 
have enough for ourselves, and as we have 
almost no sugar, the scarcity is not so dis- 
turbing as it would be otherwise. But it de- 
prives the pockets here of sous, and they 
need them. 

To-day is a very hot day. It is so hot that 
Pere left for Meaux to take a few things to 
market before four, and was back for his 
coffee at seven. 

You see how we occupy ourselves here in 
spite of the war. At this minute, but for the 
newspapers, which, in the silence, we read 
and try to understand, and but for the sol- 
diers In our ambulance — more sick than 
wounded just now — and but for such heart- 
breaking affairs as the air raids on London 

[ 44 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

when school-children were killed, we seem at 
times almost as far off from the war as you 
are. We do not get used to it. No one 
ever will, but more and more we are begin- 
ning to understand that if war is to be we 
must prepare to meet all the atrocities of a 
nation like Germany, fighting for its mis- 
taken ideas, and its continued existence on a 
wrong road. The world had no right to let 
itself be taken by surprise. Germany had 
never made any secret of her ambitions. 
Apart from all the military and economic 
books in which all her ideas of her future de- 
velopment and her belief in conquest have 
been clearly set down, no German writer on 
any subject has been able to escape putting 
the national ideas into books of no matter 
what nature. Even as long ago as 1861 
Hermann Grimm in an article on Emerson, 
after prophesying one Church and one State, 
remarked : " But what next? The strife will 
then be to make this one sovereignty the 
Germanic, to which the Slav, the Mongolian, 
the Romanic, and whatever other races are 
called, shall submit," and less than twenty 
years later (1879), James E. Hosmer, a 
professor of German literature in St. Louis, 
in spite of an intelligent effort to deal justly 
with the comparative struggles of England, 
Germany and the States, announced his opin- 
ion that the .world was slowly being German- 
ized. After all, who knows, if, but for this 

[ 45 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

stupid war, his prophecy might not have 
become true? There is no doubt in any of 
our minds that the world had been in a way 
hypnotized by Germany ever since 1870. If 
the Hohenzollerns had not returned to the 
methods of the days of Hannibal, there is 
no knowing what might have happened. 
Listen to what I came across accidentally the 
other day, about old times when " upon their 
great white shields they slide down the slopes 
of the Alps to do battle. They have armour 
of brass and helmets fashioned into resemb- 
lance of heads of beasts of prey. The 
women fight by the side of their husbands, 
then, as priestesses, slay the prisoners, letting 
the blood run into brazen caldrons that it 
may offer an omen. Even the Romans are 
terrified, veterans though they are from the 
just ended struggle with Hannibal. Papirius 
Carbo goes down before them, and Rome 
expects to see in her streets the blond North- 
men, as she had just before looked for the 
dark-skinned Numidian. Caius Marius 
meets them, 100 B.C. in southern Gaul, and 
again in northern Italy, the front rank of 
their hosts — that they may stand firm — 
bound together man by man, with a chain, 
and the fierce women waiting in the rear with 
uplifted axes to slay all cowards. But 
Marius comes off conqueror from the corpse- 
heaped battle-fields, and Rome has a 
respite ! " 

[ 46 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

I have always told you, the world does not 
change, — and how more than true it js that 
history repeats itself. Our age and time has 
been deaf to the warnings of the past, and 
blind to the writing on the wall. Yet even 
that is the virtue of a failing. It is danger- 
ous to think too well of a people, but it is, 
after all, a generous fault. Germany's is the 
reverse — she thinks too ill of every one but 
herself, and knows herself as little as she 
knows other people. 

If you have handy a book containing 
Grimm's essay on Frederick the Great and 
Macaulay, do read it, just for phrases like 
this: 

"That a German should write a history 
of France, Italy, Russia, or Turkey would 
seem no wise unsuitable, or contradictory, 
but imagine an Italian, Frenchman, or Turk 
writing a history of Germany! If the book 
by chance imposed on some innocent mind 
because written in a foreign language it 
would only be necessary to translate it." 

Well, by their own acts they have im- 
peached themselves — and late as it is, it is 
lucky for the world that it is not later. 

I suppose it will not be long now before 
our boys begin to arrive, but I have no mad 
expectation of their being fit for action be- 
fore the end of the year, if they are then. 
Kitchener's first mob was dressed for the 

[ 47 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

field in eight months, but England is nearer 
than the States, and the submarines were not 
so active in 19 15 as they are now. It is 
not only a long way to Tipperary — it is a 
mighty long way to New York. The only 
prayer I ever feel like saying these days — 
and even that is against my habits, for I 
don't believe as much in asking for things as 
I do in being grateful for them — is : "Hurry 
up, America ! May the Allies hold out until 
you get here." 

Though I say so little about the war, and 
although we keep on doing the little ordi- 
nary things of everyday life — we must, you 
know — our hearts are all out there in the 
north, where, since the so-called strategic 
retreat some of the toughest fighting in the 
war has written Craonne, Tete de Conde 
and Chemin des Dames in letters of fire on 
our memories. The beginning of these 
things happened 'way back in April, but the 
news we get is so meagre in details that it 
is only now that we realize all the heroism 
of the effort, or are able to put a proper 
name on the battles. Of course we did get 
the news of the wonderful English work at 
Messines eight days ago, at once. That 
was such a noisy affair that it could not be 
kept out of notice, besides it had been pre- 
paring for so long, and was so soon over. 
I am told they heard the explosion in Lon- 
don, when the long-prepared mines were 

[ 48 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

touched off. It was one of the things we did 
not hear here. 

Well, Constantine is off his throne, — an- 
other wandering crowned head to be a politi- 
cal danger to the future. At any rate it will 
protect us from getting a blow in the back 
down there, though it comes at a late day. 
Next ! 



[ 49 ] 



July 5, 1917 

Well, the first of our boys have marched 
in the streets of Paris. 

I did not see them. I was not able to go 
up to town, nor was I in the mood to see such 
a procession. So in honour of the day — it 
was July 4th — I put up all my flags, and 
waited to hear about the enthusiasm with 
which the boys were received, from other 
people. 

The day before, Petain had addressed the 
French army in these words : 

"To-morrow, the anniversary of the Dec- 
laration of Independence of the United 
States of America, the first American troops 
to land in France will march in Paris. Soon 
after they will join us at the front. 

" Salutations to our new comrades in 
arms, who, without arriere-pensee of money 
or conquest, inspired simply by the desire to 
defend the cause of justice and liberty, have 
come to take their place at our side. 

"Other divisions are preparing to follow 
them. 

"The United States of America is pre- 
pared to place at our disposition, v/ithout re- 

[ 50 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

garding the cost, her soldiers, her factories, 
her ships, — the entire resources of her 
country. They are inspired by a desire to 
pay a hundred-fold the debt of gratitude 
they feel to Lafayette and his comrades. 

" With one voice, on this Fourth of July, 
let the cry go up from every point on our 
front ' Honour to the great Sister Republic ! 
Fivent les Etats-Unisf '' 

The order was obeyed with spirit. It was 
one great echo of the cheers that split the 
air in April, and yesterday America owned 
Paris. One of my friends who was there 
wrote me last night: " I wonder you did not 
hear the cheers on the Hilltop. The walls 
of Paris shook with them. And Pershing 
had tears rolling down his cheeks as he rode 
through the shouting crowds." 

I would have liked to know what he 
thought of Paris, as the capital of an in- 
vaded country. I am afraid it will prove a 
terrible temptation to our boys, for there is 
no question that Paris has a charm which 
few can resist long. I guarantee that before 
long the States will hear all sorts of tales 
about the unlicensed acts of our boys in their 
first encounter with an atmosphere so new 
to them, and a people so strange to them. 
Don't let that worry you. It is a phase 
which was to be foreseen, and was logically 
impossible to prevent. A large percentage 
of our bovs — whose last thought was that 

[ 51 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

they would ever be soldiers sent to fight on 
foreign soil — know nothing about the 
French. They have all heard of Paris as a 
" gay city," where wonderful things take 
place, and of France as a country where 
things are permitted which would not be tol- 
erated at home. You know no race belies 
itself in its light literature as the French. 
And it is the light literature which is the 
most known in translations. To judge by 
that, women are never virtuous, men are 
never loyal, and we all know how often it 
has been said that " home " has no equiva- 
lent in French because the thing itself does 
not exist here. You and I know France 
better than that. We know that nowhere in 
all the world is home life more beautiful, or 
family ties stronger than where the words 
^'' ma mere^^ are sacred, and where father 
and son are not ashamed to embrace in pub- 
lic. If there is less hypocrisy of speech and 
opinion about some of the natural incidents 
of human experience than exists in some 
other parts of the world, those who draw 
too quick conclusions from that will be liable 
to find themselves mistaken. If the French 
make less fuss than we do about certain acci- 
dents of life, it is to their credit, and they 
are only a bit in advance of the rest of the 
world — in the vanguard of advance — in 
fact the banner-bearers, as they always have 
been, of civilization. Then, besides, you 

[ 52 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

know, and the world will know when this is 
over, that the so-called " emotional French " 
are less hysterical than we are. 

So don't you worry over any of the tales 
about the American boys in Paris which are 
sure to go across by cable and special corre- 
spondents. Over here our boys will grow 
into self-reliant, self-respecting men. They 
will be broken of many of the bad habits 
which we have to know exist, and they will 
go home — such of them as return — to 
build up a new type of American. Hard- 
ships will model their faces, which when I 
was last in New York looked too round and 
pudgy; exercise will harden their frames 
which were too molle. In fact, they will be 
in every way the better. They will leave a 
great heritage to the future and make a race 
with a right to pride. Besides, they will com- 
plete their education in a way that no uni- 
versity could, and, after it is over, no one will 
be able to accuse us justly again of being " a 
race of provincials." 

I felt that I had to say this quickly, as 
judging by the letters I got to-day the Ameri- 
cans have given Paris a shock, and the ma- 
terial is too good to be long neglected by 
the space writers. So don't worry. It is 
unimportant. 

I have another brood of chickens — this 
time twelve out of thirteen, — and yet 
Amelie is not content. I hope the next will 

[ 53 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

be really satisfying, — expect them in a few 
days. 

I don't need to tell you that I was very 
popular here on the Fourth. Every one 
treated me as if I were the entire United 
States of America. After long years of 
doubting, it was a fine feeling. I felt all 
warm and comfy about my heart. I had 
waited so long for it. 



[ 54 ] 



VI 

July 27, igi7 

I WAS surprised on looking in my letter- 
book to find that it is already three weeks 
since I last wrote to you. But a farmer's 
life is a busy one, and we have had strange 
weather — so changeable. The seventh and 
eighth were hot and muggy, the ninth like a 
chilly autumn day, the twelfth and thirteenth 
were very hot; on the seventeenth we had a 
rainstorm that turned my garden into a lake, 
and the road into a brook. Then came one 
awfully hot day — just scorching — and since 
then it has been beautiful. All this has been 
good for our crops. I Ve had peas and 
beans, cucumbers and tomatoes, strawberries 
and raspberries — in fact I think every day, 
as I sit down at noon, that I live just as well 
now as I could at any crack restaurant in the 
world. Next week I shall have green corn 
and all sorts of other dainties. It is a pity 
that it is not summer every day in the year. 

On the tenth I saw the first camions full 
of Americans going over the road towards 
Meaux. As I sat in the little cart watching 
them go by, I did wish I could tell them that 
I was an American, but it seemed best not 

[ 55 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

to. They are — for prudential reasons, — 
advised not to talk to strangers, and it is 
wise. So I contented myself with smiling at 
them — every one does that — and feeling a 
bit chagrined that they did not recognize in 
me a fellow citizen. 

All the comi7iune has been busy for a fort- 
night picking cassis — the black currants — 
and the English are going to risk buying 
them to make jelly for the soldiers. It is 
always one of the prettiest times of the year, 
when little children as well as men and 
women are sitting on low stools under the 
laden bushes, in the hot sun and the showers. 
But it is weary work, and they look so tired, 
as at four o'clock they rest for a bite and lie 
sprawled everywhere to eat their bread and 
cheese. 

We have had some trying days, days 
when leading a normal life seemed absurd. 
On the seventeenth the bombardment was so 
heavy that the very house shook, and the 
twenty-first v/as no better. Yet the news- 
papers gave no news that would seem to 
explain In either case. It simply recalls to 
our minds that it is going on always, — this 
war. 

Last night was a hard one. I was reading 
in bed, and, for lack of anything new, I had 
taken up Benson's " Lord of the World" — 
more interesting now than when I first read 
it. Suddenly I was literally made to jump 

[ 56 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

out of bed by a terrible explosion — not in 
the direction of the front. I went into the 
back of the house and looked out towards 
Paris. It was a black night, — no moon, no 
stars — and deathly still. I was finally 
almost convinced that It was a terrible and 
solitary clap of thunder. So I went back to 
bed. 

Half an hour later came a series of terrific 
explosions. So I wrapped up and went out 
into the orchard. 

I could see the light of a fire in the east, 
but not in the direction of Paris, and much 
nearer. By this time I heard voices every- 
where and knew that other people were up. 
There was no doubt what it was, of course 
— ammunition works. The morning papers 
announce the hand-grenade factory at 
Claye destroyed. Pity! We need all our 
ammunition. 

Of course that meant no sleep for me. 
Once I am waked up well, no hope of sleep- 
ing again these days. 

I am amused at yourletter about Jeannette. 
Glad you enjoyed her, but rather sorry you 
ask for news of her. Alas ! her news is not 
good. But here it Is. Jeannette could never 
be cured of the habits of her youth, — for 
which she was not to blame, — nor be recon- 
ciled to lack of liberty. As long as she re- 
mained, she continued to b-l-lart In the most 
heartrending manner if she was left alone. 

[ 57 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

Amelic had something to do besides sitting 
with her, and I grew weary, if ever I sent 
Amehe on an errand in the afternoon, of 
either listening to her heartbreaking calls, or 
taking a book and a camp chair and bearing 
her company. When we did not go to her, 
she cried and would not eat. So pretty soon 
she went dry, — then — she went away, too. 
I hope she found Pierre and Paul in the 
Happy Hunting Grounds. 

It was a pretty sore subject for some time. 
But one gets used to everything, and the 
other day I asked Amelie how much she got 
for Pierre and Paul. " Eighteen francs," 
she replied. Then I made a heartless calcu- 
lation. " We paid twelve for Jeannette. We 
sold the whole outfit for thirty-five. We 
were twenty-three francs to the good plus 
experience, a few quarts of milk, and some 
fun." 

I should not have diverted you with de- 
tails like that. You brought it on yourself. 

These bucolic diversions do not help us to 
forget — nothing can — but they sometimes 
ease the strain wonderfully. 

Incidentally, — I saw a soldier from one 
of the ambulance corps the other day, who 
was at Arras when the battle ended after a 
month of pretty stiii fighting. He tells me 
it is a dead city. It was bombarded in the 
early days of 19 14. It was bombarded in 
July, 191 5, and now, through the month of 

[ 58 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

May, the battle raged round it. It was a 
beautiful and historic city — full of wonder- 
ful old buildings. It Is now a ruin. But as 
the stretcher-bearer said: "Talk about 
beauty! I stood in the Petite Place, in the 
moonlight, one night, looking toward the 
once majestic Hotel de Ville above whose 
arch-supported Gothic fagade soared, in 
October, 19 14, that lofty belfry. All about 
me was ruin, and through the broken fagade 
and falling tower the white moonlight 
streamed, making one of the most wonderful 
pictures I had ever seen. It was the very 
majesty and dignity of desolation. No cen- 
turies-old Greek or Egyptian or Roman ruin 
ever moved me more deeply. I have been 
often in the moonlight to look at the Coli- 
seum at Rome, and I could not help wishing 
that before that ruin is restored all the world 
might see it as I saw it that night. Its dig- 
nity. Its desolation, and its beauty seemed to 
me so symbolic of France of to-day." 



[ 59 ] 



VII 

August 14., igiy 

Sorry to tell you that the weather turned 
nasty in the last days of July. The leaves 
began to turn brown, to dry, and to fall. 
The world already looks like autumn. It 
fills me with misgivings for the winter. I 
have been putting in wood, in the hope of 
having something I can call a fire. I have 
been buying wood wherever I could get it. 
It is slow work, the wood is queer stuff,— 
what the trade calls " benefice des boucher- 
ons,^^ — that is to say, gnarled pieces, roots, 
big chunks, in fact all the wood not consid- 
ered good enough for a respectable wood- 
pile, and which dealers do not buy. Need- 
less to say that I pay just as much for it as if 
it were the neat three-feet-long logs my fire- 
place demands. 

There is no coal in sight. 

However, it is not yet winter. It is indeed 
two months before, under usual climatic con- 
ditions, I should think of needing fires. Yet, 
even to-day I could enjoy a brisk fire in the 
evenings, which are more like October than 
August. 

Don't imagine that I am depressed. I am 

[ 60 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

not. I am simply, by force of habit, telling 
you the truth. 

I wonder if a full realization of the situa- 
tion over here will ever come to you in the 
States. I don't yet see how it can. The 
ocean is wide. I know myself how difficult 
it is to arrive at an actual conception of a 
far-off disaster. But I suppose that, next 
year, when every day's newspaper will carry 
its list of casualties, you will feel quite differ- 
ently from what you do now, and have less 
taste for the sight of marching regiments and 
bands of music. 

Just imagine what France is like to-day. 
The north-east is a devastated battle-field. 
The rest of the country is spread pretty thick 
with factories making war materials. The 
fields on which we are depending to live are 
being cultivated, short-handed, as best they 
can be, by women, children, old men, and war 
prisoners. The south and west are over- 
crowded with training camps, cantines, hos- 
pitals and refugees. It is an inconceivable 
situation. One has to see it to realize it. 
When one thinks of it seriously, isn't it re- 
markable to see how, with the entire able- 
bodied male population in the war, the work 
of the nation can go on at all? It is not as- 
tonishing that we lack things. It is miracu- 
lous that we get on at all, and that, once the 
army is fed, there is anything left for us 
civilians. 

[ 6i ] 



The Peak of the Load 

Of course we are not just now seeing any- 
thing of the war except in our little ambu- 
lance — where to-day they are mostly sick 
and convalescents — usually boys slowly 
coming back to interest in life from having 
been gassed. Our roads are quiet. We 
rarely hear more than a dull far-off booming 
of guns. It often sounds about as much like 
horses kicking in their stalls as anything else. 

To be sure we only have to cross the 
Marne into Meaux to get a different impres- 
sion. For Meaux is a military centre, and 
always was. Its huge barracks near the ca- 
thedral gave it, even in peace time, a military 
aspect. There is to-day a big military hos- 
pital in the barracks, which are built quite 
round the great sunlit inner court, and cover 
an immense tract of ground. In the bar- 
racks there is to-day one of the hundreds of 
English cantines that the British are running 
for the French soldiers. It is conducted by 
a group of British ladies, one of them a 
cousin of Lord French, a lady older than I 
am, who works with all the enthusiasm of a 
girl, and with the tact and ability that girls 
lack. 

These wonderful British women are 
among the most interesting things the war 
has brought to France. The leaders are 
often women — wives and widows of offi- 
cers — who have seen Indian service. You 

[ 62 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

know the type of horseback-riding women, 
used to adventure and danger, with pluck as 
well as charm, slender, nervous, and untiring. 

Their cantine at Meaux is a model one. 
It serves special regimes for six hundred sol- 
diers, provides reading matter, teaches them 
sports, takes an interest in them when they 
go back to the front, and keeps them fur- 
nished with all sorts of comforts. 

I wish that you, who have such a respect 
for order — you know you always were tire- 
somely orderly — could see that huge 
kitchen, all freshly painted pale green, with 
its wide doors opening into the big sunlit 
court, where the soldiers sit about, the 
horses are exercised, huge army camions are 
lined up, and at the far end of which are the 
neat freshly built sheds for the German 
prisoners. 

There is a great range across the back, 
and near the open door there is a reading- 
table on which there are always fresh flowers, 
and groups of rattan chairs stand around it. 
At one side is a tiny dining-room where the 
directress of the cantine and her aides eat, 
and behind it a room with two stoves where 
they make gallons and gallons of tea and 
coffee in the biggest urns I ever saw. 

The service is no glorious one, I can tell 
you. There Is nothing picturesque about it. 
It is sheer hard work — at times it is almost 

[ 63 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

menial. I am telling you about it, because 
I want you to realize what war is demanding 
of women to-day. 

Every day one of these women gets an 
order from the head nurse for a certain 
number of soups, a certain number of meat 
dishes, so many dishes of specified vege- 
tables, etc. This list is written on a big 
blackboard fixed on the wall beside the stove, 
and at a certain hour the men who distribute 
the food come to the kitchen to carry away 
the trays. Often the only help they have is 
from the convalescent soldiers and German 
prisoners. They stand over the hot stoves 
themselves, unmindful of complexion or 
hands. 

Whenever I was there I always felt a 
great curiosity regarding the mental proc- 
esses of the Germans. I watched their quick 
way of working, their silence, their docility, 
and, as far as I could see, perfect politeness. 
I got the idea in my head that, no matter 
what they might say, there was not one of 
them, judging by their looks, who did not 
rejoice that for him, and probably through 
no fault of his, the horrors of war were over. 
I knew that one at least of the English ladies 
spoke German. So I asked her one day 
about them. She replied : 

"They are the best, the most civil, the 
best disciplined help we have ever had. 
They are clean about their work, and abso- 

[ 64 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

lately obedient. There is never any ques- 
tion about an order. It is given. It is 
executed." 

That did not surprise me, but that was not 
what I wanted to know. So I put the ques- 
tion flatly. "But about the war? Do they 
still believe In a victory for Germany?" 

"Oh, absolutely," she replied. "They 
have no doubt about that. They say quite 
freely that they can easily hold out three 
years longer; that we may hold them, but 
we cannot beat them. There are no two 
minds amongst them on that subject. They 
even agree so well in their manner of insist- 
ing that It almost seems as if they were speak- 
ing under orders." 

I give you this for what It is worth, only 
insisting, since you so often write as if you 
In the States had the Idea that we were soon 
to see Germany break. I often wonder 
where you get the Idea. Here it looks to us 
every year as If Germany were stronger, in- 
stead of weaker, as If each year, with her 
capacity for obedience and her habits of or- 
ganization, she was learning in the war new 
ways of safeguarding herself. We never 
can get away from that forty years of prepa- 
ration, for while we are working so hard to 
recover from years of foolish Idleness, Ger- 
many Is no more Idle than we are. I have 
said this to you before more than once, I am 
afraid, and if I keep Insisting it Is only be- 

[ 6s ] 



The Peak of the Load 

cause It seems to me a fatal error to ignore 
that fact. 

These ladles at Meaux, who have never 
before known long hours of manual labour, 
great responsibility, and absolute negation of 
personal tastes, have nevertheless started to 
arrange a night cantine at Meaux. 

I may have told you before that Meaux is 
strangely lacking in restaurants. In spite of 
its historical interest, it is not as much visited 
as many other towns less famous. There Is 
no restaurant of any sort in the station. 
There is a common buvette at one end where 
workmen go to get a drink, but where no 
other class would dream of entering. There 
is a terrace outside where one can sit down 
to drink a lemonade. It is just the most or- 
dinary buvette with a zinc counter in front 
of a sink for washing glasses, and there is 
always a crowd — and a very smelly one — 
in front of it. There are a few hotels, only 
one fairly good, but they are in the town, 
at some distance from the railway station. 

Of course Meaux is a great military centre 
now. Through its big station pass all the 
trains from the front from Verdun to the 
north which do not pass over the northern 
road to Belgium. Military trains are slow. 
Hundreds of men from the huge camp of 
permission aires at Vaires have to change 
cars, both coming in and going out, at 
Meaux, and often they wait hours to make 
[ €•(> ] 



The Peak of the Load 

their connection. This wait is more often 
than not in the night. It is bitter cold on the 
long, covered platform, and there is no 
chance to get even a cup of coffee. 

So these English ladies are setting up a 
night cantine there, to be running from mid- 
night to four o'clock, and half the little 
group is to be on duty every night, ready to 
serve hot tea, coffee, or soup. 

I often laugh when I see them, over the 
fuss that has been made in my time over the 
*' eight-hour law " for able-bodied men. Of 
course I know that you are going to fling 
back at me that women are tougher than 
men, even harking back that boy babies 
are harder to bring through childhood than 
girls. But that has nothing to do with the 
question. The real thing is, that if only the 
world in its development could aid people 
to find work to do that they either loved or 
believed in, their hours of labour would not 
be the hated slavery they now are to the 
mass. 

I hope you won't mind my talking so 
much about the women in this war. I wish 
you could come over here if only to see 
them. I feel that there has been nothing 
more worth while done in the war than the 
work of women of all nations. I know you 
women in the States are all working, but to 
realize what is being done, one has to see it 
over here. 

C 67 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

I imagine we have buried for all time 
what has for so many years been known as 
the "woman question." It has been a long 
and bitter struggle, and so often conducted 
on unwise lines. It requires a fanatic to 
lead a crusade, and the woman cause has 
had its fanatics, — and its martyrs, too. 
The beauty of the whole matter is that 
woman has won by acts, not words. She 
has won by doing a woman's work. Best 
of all she has, for all time, given the lie to 
the argument that she had no right to the 
franchise because in case of a war she could 
not protect her country. It has taken a war 
to prove the falseness of such an argument, 
and to demonstrate that, while women could 
not, as a sex, carry a gun into battle, there 
was work just as important — real war work 
— which she could do, and she has done it 
well, in a manner which has compelled man 
to bare his head before her, and bend his 
knee to her just as devoutly as he ever did 
in the days of chivalry, even while he recog- 
nized in her a comrade and an equal. 

Moreover, when she was needed and cap- 
able, she has actually gone into the firing 
line, and won and worn her decorations for 
the same reasons that men have received 
them. 

In every branch of war work done by un- 
armed men, women have appeared and shown 
the same courage and the same unfailing 
[ 68 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

patriotism as men. They have worked for 
the cause and died for it without in any way 
unsexing themselves. I have seen thousands 
of these women, and I give you my word 
that among no women I have ever met in my 
long life have I found " womanliness " finer 
than among the women near the front, every 
one of whom was doing work that but for 
them an able-bodied man would have had to 
stay behind the fighting-line to do. 

I hope you have heard about the English 
Women's War Auxiliary Corps, made abso- 
lutely imperative by the need of more men 
before the States came in. These are young 
women of all classes, enlisted like men for 
the duration of the war, dressed in khaki, 
living in camps or cantonnements just like 
the men, under exactly the same conditions 
as the Tommies, and facetiously called by 
their friends " Miss Thomasina Atkins." 
The big force of thousands is officered by 
women. They live behind the lines under 
the same conditions as the men, and do all 
sorts of clerical work — post-office, tele- 
graph, motor-cycle — in fact everything a 
woman can do to liberate a man to carry a 
gun. 

I have a number of young girl friends in 
the corps, dressed in uniform, wearing mili- 
tary boots, living a soldier's life of hardship 
and discipline. No wonder the suffrage ex- 
citement is already ancient history. If war 

[ 69 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

does nothing but this for Great Britain, It 
has done much. Yet we who are looking on 
know already that this is only one of the 
great things it has achieved. 

This Is getting to be a long letter. Never 
mind. When things are slow, as they are 
now, and I am so shut away that I have no 
one to whom I can chatter, no one to theorize 
with, I have to clear my brain now and then 
by talking at a sheet of paper — just to drive 
the haze and confusion out of my mind. 

Useless to talk to you across the ocean 
about the ever-changing and day after day 
more threatening Russian situation. I am 
afraid nothing can now stop the fatal trend 
of events. For the time — and perhaps for- 
ever — we are evidently going to lose Russia. 
I wonder if you in the States have the faint- 
est Idea what this means? Why, if Germany 
succeeds in getting Russia disarmed In the 
next few months — well, I dare not even say 
to myself all that It seems to me to threaten. 
Poor Russian people — such dreamers ! 
They are not wicked. I do not believe that 
they hav^e the faintest conception of the dis- 
aster they are preparing for France. Of 
course Germany does not yet believe that the 
States can put any important fighting force 
into France before she fetches off the coup 
which will liberate a couple of millions of 
soldiers now on her eastern frontiers to 
march against us. It is a formidable idea for 

[ 70 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

us to face. Well, England put a fighting 
army into France in eight months, and had 
to bring a large part of it from Canada and 
Australia. And, alas ! in addition to the 
hordes that may come to fling themselves 
en masse on us before the States are ready, 
you must not forget that the middle-Europe 
powers can put nearly a million fresh troops 
into the field automatically, each year, from 
the classes which reach military age — they 
are prolific, those Boche races. 

Then, also, no means are too low for them. 
When a country is without honour and with- 
out shame, its means of increasing savage 
purposes is tremendously increased. When 
the true history of the Russian debacle is 
written, it will add another startling page to 
the deathless dishonour of Prussianized Ger- 
many. If one stops at nothing, one can, 
temporarily, accomplish many things. I am 
sure the untiring American war correspond- 
ent must have already told you of one of the 
methods by which the Germans get some of 
the Russians to lay down their arms. How, 
having, for days, bombarded a discouraged 
army, cut them off from their reinforcements 
and their commissary trains by a heavy artil- 
lery barrage^ reduced by hunger, thirst and 
panic, they sent out a flag of truce accom- 
panied by wheelbarrows full of a special kind 
of bread of which the Russians are fond, and 
"vodka of which they have been deprived 

[ 71 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

since the first year of the war. They fed 
and inebriated them when their hope and 
power of resistance was at its lowest ebb. 
Of course, that is not a very encouraging 
sign for the Russian race, but after all, as a 
people they are only children; not warriors, 
but mystics and dreamers, and know nothing 
of international affairs. They have never 
known responsibility, so how can they know 
honour? 

It is a tragic situation for us. But we 
must be patient with them, even in our dread 
of the consequences. It is that, or throwing 
that huge, rich undeveloped country — 
which in the future is likely to be the El- 
dorado of adventurers, and see a stampede 
which will surpass California, or Kimberley, 
or the Klondike — into the greedy hands of 
Germany. If we cannot prevent that at any 
sacrifice, I do not see how Europe — or the 
rest of the world for that matter — is going 
to escape from the domination of Germany 
except after centuries of war. Germany 
seems able to fight, and organize and com- 
mercially invade, at the same time. 

This is why I cannot look forward without 
shuddering. Germany expects to settle with 
Russia in the next six months. Can the 
States be ready then? 

Don't imagine I am downhearted. I am 
not. But I tell you quite frankly, I am ter- 
ribly nervous, and the calm about here just 

[ 72 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

now does not make me less so. I am sure 
that there Is not an intelligent person here 
who does not know what the result of this 
struggle is to be, but it is the realization — 
every month more clear — of all it is going 
to cost which keeps our nerves a bit over- 
strung. 



[ 73 ] 



VIII 

August 24, J917 

I HAVE had quite an active month, for me. 

I have been visiting and I have had com- 
pany twice. Rather exciting, isn't it? 
Otherwise my life has been as usual: — a 
little work in the garden, a weekly visit to 
the ambulance, and now and then a call from 
some of the convalescent soldiers. 

My sweet corn came up wonderfully. I 
have been eating it almost every day. But 
you should see my French neighbours' sur- 
prise at the deed. They raise fodder corn 
for their cattle. They never heard of such a 
thing as eating any kind of corn. Whenever 
they pass the garden while I am gathering 
it, they always stop to watch me, and when 
I come down the bank swinging the bunch 
of ears in my hand, they invariably ask, 
"What Is Madame going to do with it?" 

" Eat it," I reply, opening the husks to 
show the golden kernels. 

"P^5 possible!^'' is the inevitable exclama- 
tion. 

You see, if there is one thing which it Is 
impossible to do, it is to change the habits of 
these people. I have cooked the corn, and 

[ 74 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

shown them how to eat It. Not they ! They 
spit It out. I have Induced them to eat corn- 
bread, but only when It Is made with eggs and 
milk, and sweetened. They call It "cake," 
and eat It with relish, but corn-meal mush, 
hasty pudding, and things of that sort, which 
would relieve the bread question, I have thus 
far found Impossible for them. 

Absolutely nothing happens here. After 
three years of war almost every day has be- 
come an anniversary day. The other years 
It was not so marked — this tendency to look 
back — but since we entered the fourth year, 
It seems as though every one had the same 
Idea. It Is constantly, " three years ago to- 
day" such and such a thing happened. First 
It was Liege which was on every one's tongue. 
Then It was Mons, and so on down the 
memories of that opening month of war. 
We are already prepared to celebrate, at the 
Cathedral at Meaux, and by a pious pilgrim- 
age to the graves on the plain, the third 
anniversary of the victory of the Marne, a 
victory which seems to gain In Importance 
each year, and which marked the end of the 
open field battles and inaugurated the try- 
ing trench warfare. Even when the war Is 
over, I Imagine there will have been nothing 
to dim the Importance of this battle. 

In the meantime the weather Is annoying, 
and we have to support It with what patience 
we can, and try our best not to dread the 

[ 75 ] 



The Peak or the Load 

winter. It is like late autumn already. I 
should so love a blazing fire in the evening. 
As it is impossible, I go into my cozy bed 
early and read. 

We watch, as well as the reticence of our 
little newspapers will let us, the terribly slow 
and costly gnawing into the German lines — 
it looks about an inch a day — of the French 
north of Verdun, and the English east of 
Ypres. Now and then we get a thrilling 
story from some point on the line, like that 
of the taking of Cote 70 by the Canadians 
on the fifteenth, which nearly accomplished 
the encircling of Lens. 

Quiet as we are here, we live under the 
obsession of the thing going on " out there," 
knowing that every hour is marked by its 
acts of personal heroism in a struggle so 
gigantic that the individual no longer counts, 
and acts of bravery are only valuable as giv- 
ing tone and colour to the entire Allied effort 
in a war where Man has simply surpassed 
himself. 

I do hope that you arc reading John 
Buchan's "History of the War." It will 
help you to understand many things about 
which I have not been able to write you. It 
is not, of course, the final word. Where so 
much is concealed, the final word cannot be 
said until much later. But it is a sane and a 
calm effort, and it helps one wonderfully. 

I refuse the bait your last letter holds out. 

[ 76 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

As long as I can resist it, I will not talk about 
the political situation. For over a hundred 
and fifty years we have made a sort of fetich 
of what we call " the people." Well, the 
justice of that Idea Is on trial now, and while 
I consider that what looks disastrous at pres- 
ent Is really In the logical march of develop- 
ment, I confess that the situation is grave. 
Any effort to curb the movement now would 
be a direct attack on liberty — liberty of 
speech, liberty of opinion. In the advance 
of the world " there Is no backward step, no 
returning," though sometimes Ideas that have 
served their purpose do get sloughed off, and 
progress goes on without them. 

The pitiful thing about this war Is — I sup- 
pose It is true of all wars for an idea — that 
the bravest and worthiest have died — the 
cream of the younger cultured class, the best 
of the youth from the farming districts and 
fishing stations of Brittany. The cultivator 
has always been the backbone of France. 
The worklngman has always been the agi- 
tator. The young farmers are all in the 
fighting regiments. The workmen are In the 
factories and on the railroads, and It Is the 
latter class which predominates In the social- 
ists, and has a taste for being " agin the 
government." The farmers are filling sol- 
diers' graves, along with the students and the 
aristocracy. The worklngman Is filling his 
pockets and talking. It Is a new proof — 

[ 77 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

if one were needed — of the vitality of 
France, the home of real liberty, where it is 
difficult to muzzle anyone, that things are 
not worse than you choose to think them. 
Let that satisfy you. It has to satisfy us. 
Besides if you will find any war, in any coun- 
try, and in any century, in which some one 
did not get rich, from the days of conquest, 
even before the great William of Normandy, 
down to wars for an idea, like our own Civil 
War, I should dearly love to hear about it. 

Well, my one English-speaking friend, 
who lives over the hill on the other side of 
the Grande Morin, is preparing again to re- 
turn to the States. You may remember that 
she left here before the battle of the Marne, 
and returned, to my great joy, the following 
summer. She has a little daughter, and this 
is no place for a child who can be taken out 
of such an atmosphere. It leaves me less 
isolated, in a certain sense, than I was in 
1 9 14, for, in three years, my French neigh- 
bours have all been drawn closer around 
me by our common interests and common 
troubles. Be sure that I am not, and never 
have been at all, lonely, even though I am 
now and then nervous, as who is not? Your 
letters do not give the impression that you 
are absolutely calm. 



[ 78 ] 



IX 

September 4, 1917 

Since I last wrote, I have been travelling. 
I have been to Versailles for a week-end. I 
can hear you laughing. Well, I assure you 
that it was no laughing matter. The days 
have gone by when we used to just run out to 
Versailles for a few hours in the afternoon. 
It took me five hours and a half from my 
door to my destination, just at the entrance 
of the park, by the Grille de Neptune. It 
was a real voyage, and the first one I have 
made, — if you except those to Paris, — 
since the war broke out. 

I went up to Paris by the five o'clock train, 
to escape the heat of mid-day. That train, 
which is the only one we have in these days 
which is not strictly a way-train, only makes 
two stops between Esbly, where I change to 
the main line, and Paris, instead of the seven 
the other trains make, and I expected, at the 
latest, to be in Paris by half-past six, with 
just time to get a bite, and take the twenty- 
five minutes past seven train for Versailles, 
and get there by half-past eight, before dark. 
No one likes to travel after dark if it can 

[ 79 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

be avoided — dark trains, dimly lighted sta- 
tions, no porters, and few cabs, you know. 

From the beginning all my plans miscar- 
ried. The train to Paris stopped and was 
side-tracked three times. Once we waited 
fifteen minutes, so that It was half-past seven 
when I arrived, and I missed my train for 
Versailles, and had to wait until nearly nine 
o'clock. There were not half a dozen pas- 
sengers in the train, and it was already nearly 
dark when it pulled out. The familiar little 
hour's ride was as strange as though I had 
never made it. The train stopped every- 
where. All the stations were dark as pos- 
sible, and therefore unrecognizable. It was 
a queer sensation to run along beside a plat- 
form in the still early darkness, see a door 
open from the ticket office, a woman, with a 
mobilization band round her left arm and a 
small cap on her head, come out in the nar- 
row stream of light from the half opened 
door, and stand ready, while perhaps one 
person got out and no one got in, to blow 
her little whistle for the train to go ahead, 
while I strained my eyes to catch somewhere 
the name of the station, and never once did it. 

If anyone had told me that anything so 
familiar could be so unfamiliar I would not 
have believed it. 

The result was that Instead of getting to 
Versailles at half-past eight, when I was 
expected, I got there at ten. There was no 

[ 80 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

way of sending word — no telephonic com- 
munication is possible, and telegrams take 
often forty-eight hours for the shortest 
distances. 

At Versailles the porter was a quarter of 
an hour finding a cab, so I arrived at my 
destination; a strange house, whose noble 
staircase was pitch-dark — and I had no 
electric lamp in my pocket — the concierge 
in bed, and very cross at being wakened, and 
I groped my way in the strange house up 
three flights of stairs to find my hostess lying 
awake and worrying. You see there is one 
thing to be said for these war times, — the 
very smallest effort one makes becomes an 
exciting adventure — else what would I have 
to write you about? 

I never saw Versailles more beautiful. 

The house in which I visited had a balcony 
overlooking the hassin de Neptune. The 
situation was ideal, not only for its beautiful 
outlook and its wonderful afternoon lights, 
but because of the ease with which one could, 
in five minutes, walk up to the top of that 
glorious terrace, on the park side of the 
palace, and look down that superb vista over 
the tapis vert to the glistening canal beyond, 
and also because I could sit on a balcony 
overlooking the street and that part of the 
park, and enjoy such a picturesque and chang- 
ing scene as the Versailles of our days has 
never known. 

[ 8i ] 



The Peak of the Load 

The town was full of training camps, 
cantonnements, and cantines. Soldiers of 
all nations, all colours, all divisions, and all 
grades pass in and out the Park gates all 
day. The tower of Babel could have been 
nothing to what the Park of Versailles was 
that Sunday that I was there. There were 
Americans and British, — Canadians, Austral- 
ians, Egyptia,ns, Indians, — there were French 
and Senegalese, and Moroccans; there were 
Serbs and Italians; there were Portuguese 
and Belgians and Rastas, and alas! there 
were a few Russians, for there are millions 
of them just as ashamed of what is happen- 
ing out in the east as we are, and just as sad 
over it. There were blacks and whites, yel- 
lows and reds and browns. There were chic 
officers, some of them on leave, still sporting 
their pantalons rouges, and much braided 
kepis. There were slouching poilus in their 
baggy trousers and ill-fitting coats, and smart 
English Tommies, and broad-hatted Yanks, 
looking as if they wished they could go coat- 
less and roll up their sleeves — it was a hot 
day — instantly distinguishable from the 
wide-hatted Australians and Canadians. 
Nothing was handsomer than the Italians 
with their smart, half-high hats, or more 
amusing than the Belgians' little tassels of all 
colours jigging from the front of their head 
covering. All day that picturesque crowd 
passed in and out of the park, with crowds 
[ 82 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

of women and children and all sorts of 
civilians. 

Just opposite the balcony where we sat 
was a shop where they sold all sorts of sou- 
venirs of the town — and post cards. From 
morning till night the crowd stopped there, 
and it seemed to me that pictures of Ver- 
sailles must be going over the world, and 
surely to many places that had never heard 
of it before. I could not help thinking of 
the beginnings of culture that all these people 
must be unconsciously taking in at the pores, 
— at least I hoped there were. Many of the 
boys from the States, who in the ordinary 
course of normal life could never have hoped 
to see the place, and who are able to appre- 
ciate it and love it, will at least have that 
much to the good — among many other 
things — when they go home. 

Of course the palace is hermetically closed. 
It has to be. All the same, I did wish that 
some of the American boys, who had never 
crossed the big pond before, could have seen 
It. However, for actual eye satisfaction the 
outside of the big palace and its parks is 
more important I only regretted the in- 
terior because I longed for them to have it 
all. 

It was wonderful how gay the crowd was, 
and how well the soldiers behaved, and how 
interested they all were in the children. The 
interest seemed mutual. I '11 warrant there 

[ 83 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

Is not a child in Versailles who does not know 
every uniform on sight, or who does not 
recognize every nationality and every grade. 

I only saw our boys at a distance as they 
came and went. But my hostess, who is liv- 
ing in Versailles for the summer and autumn, 
not only meets and talks with them on days 
when the park is not so thronged as it is on 
Sundays, she has them sitting by her fireside 
to drink tea. She tells me that some of 
them are terribly homesick. They miss their 
women-folks, and their young girl friends. 
That is perfectly natural, for the comrade- 
ship between young men and women in the 
States is a sort of relation which no other 
people have or understand. Even homesick- 
ness which will be forgotten as soon as they 
are actively " in it " is, I am told, doing them 
good. It may console all of you on the other 
side of the water to know that the boys speak 
of " home " as probably none of you ever 
heard them speak, and say "mother" in a 
tone quite new to them. So there is gain in 
all things. 

I did not care to go Into the park in the 
crowd. It was much more interesting to 
watch the moving throng from my high gal- 
lery seat, and to wander about the park in 
the early morning, when It was practically 
empty. That is a chance one rarely gets 
unless one is staying there. You have no 
idea how lovely it looks then, and one can 

[ 84 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

wander at will, and every turn is a new pic- 
ture, all the more beautiful for lacking fel- 
low creatures in modern clothes. I never see 
it, as I saw it one breezy morning, when 
there seemed to be only us two about, with- 
out feeling a debt of gratitude to Louis XIV, 
great builder that he was. It is a debt that 
accumulates. Even Republican France can 
afford to be grateful to him, and forgive his 
faults for the sake of the grandeur he con- 
ferred on them, and which no republic can 
ever dare to imitate out of the country's 
purse. 

I wish you, who know the park so well, 
could see it this year. There are no flowers. 
Some of the pines and cedars on the terraces 
are neglected — the number of gardeners is 
Insufficient for all the work — and In some of 
the more primitive parts of the park the trees 
need trimming. Instead of flowers there are 
vegetables planted everywhere. All the 
flower beds surrounding the grass plots are 
planted with potatoes and beans and simple 
garden stuff. As the French gardener is in- 
capable of doing anything ugly, these beds 
of vegetables are laid out just as carefully as 
If the choicest flowers from the serves were 
there; each bed has Its label, carefully 
placed, to Indicate the variety, bearing the 

words, " Planted for Ambulance No. ." 

Isn't that a pretty Idea? 

Several of the fountains were being re- 

[ 8s ] 



The Peak of the Load 

paired the morning we walked there alone, 
and one of them was playing, just as if for 
us. It was delightful to be walking along 
a shady alley, with the thick carpet of dry 
leaves rustling under foot, and stirring all 
one's memories of the historic days of the 
ancient regime, and to see suddenly at the 
end of the vista a jet of water rise into the 
air, and the autumn breeze shake it into 
spray. Ordinarily on days when such a sight 
is possible, a great crowd prevents one from 
realizing that it is beautiful as well as spec- 
tacular, and the same crowd and its move- 
ment drives away the spectres of the past. 

It was lucky I made this brief visit. If I 
had not, I don't know what I could have writ- 
ten to you about. It is the same old story of 
patient waiting, — of trying realization that 
we are all used to of the slow movement and 
the meagre results. The Allies are holding 
the beast by the throat out there, and it 
begins to look as if that were about all that 
could be done until the boys from the States 
are ready to go in and choke him. After all, 
It is a pretty big job — and the beast dies 
hard. I am afraid he does not yet realize 
that he is being choked. All I pray is that 
he does not get away, and make another 
bound. Not that it will matter except to 
make us all mad. 



[ 86 ] 



X 

October 4, IQ17 

September was not a bad month, except 
that it led us nearer to the winter, which I 
frankly dread. In two weeks it will be time 
to light up the fires, not for the cheer to my 
eyes, but from actual necessity, — and I Ve 
no fuel. 

Already the garden is faded. The only 
things still flowering are a few brave roses, 
zinnias, and Indian pinks. Everything else 
has been either cut back, or taken up. 

I have done nothing this month — except 
the usual thing, studying a map of the front, 
or wondering at what date Germany will 
choose to fling the concentrated forces the 
Russian debacle put at her disposal against 
us. You seem to have not the smallest idea 
of this possibility^ since I note in your last 
letter your remark '* that Germany is in a 
shocking state, and must break soon." I 
wonder where you get that impression, and 
wait for the moment sure to come, when your 
eyes will be opened to the truth, — that time 
serves Germany as well as it serves us; that 
if we are stronger to-day than we were in 
1 9 14, so is she; and that not until the States 

[ 87 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

can actually put jighting men Into the line Is 
there any hope of our doing more than we 
have done so far — hold the Boche. 

Please God the time does not come when 
we cannot. 

Since I last wrote you I have made two 
trips across the Marne to Juilly, to visit the 
American hospital. Many of the nurses over 
there have been very neighbourly since, nearly 
two years ago, after the first offensive in 
Champagne, two of them led Colonel Pelle- 
tier over here one dreary rainy day to call. 
He is General Pelletier to-day. He gave his 
right arm to his country in that autumn fight 
of 19 1 5, and you may know him by name in 
the States, as he was the first man to greet 
General Pershing when he landed in France. 
He speaks English as well as we do, — the 
case with so many colonial officers. Ever 
since that afternoon I have had a sort of sen- 
timent for Juilly. The nurses and doctors 
have been rather neighbourly, but I have 
never got up the energy to return their nice 
visits. I liked the idea, that, not far away, 
men and women of my race were working for 
France, at a place that I could almost see 
from my lawn. I can actually, on a clear 
day, see Monge, the last town passed on the 
road to Juilly. 

It was not until I had two reasons to push 
me that I made up my mind to go to Juilly. 

First, Mademoiselle Henriette, whose 
[ 88 ] 



( 



The Peak of the Load 

service In our ambulance had deprived her 
of all recreation, was anxious to see a big 
modern war hospital, and I had It in my 
power to gratify her. 

Second, I had an old friend — a priest — 
who Is a professor in the College de Jullly, 
part of which has been given up to the hos- 
pital. This Abbe, not unknown in Boston, 
— he once taught there, — had marched 
away, with a gun on his shoulder, in the days 
of September, 19 14, but later, being deli- 
cate, it was decided that he was more useful 
as a teacher than as a poilu, and he sadly 
took off his tunic and resumed his soutane. 

The first visit led logically to the second. 
Mademoiselle Henrlette talked so much in 
our modest little ambulance at Quincy of all 
the wonders she had seen at Jullly, that our 
Aledicin-Chef, a clever Russian, was anxious 
to see it, and I returned to introduce him and 
the directress of the ambulance, who is the 
wife of our Mayor. I made both visits in- 
side of ten days. 

You will begin to think that I am always 
gadding. Well, it has been rather exciting 
for the old lady these last weeks. I am 
afraid that I was getting garden-bound, just 
as the army is getting trench-bound, and, as 
ruling passions are strong in death, in spite 
of myself, my visits to Jullly took on a sort 
of before-the-war historical-research spirit. 

The College de Jullly, which has given 

[ 89 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

up Its dormitories to the hospital, is an his- 
torical university founded by the Orateriens, 
and situated in one of the most extensive and 
picturesque parks in the department of the 
Seine and Marne. It was in that college that 
Stuart kings of England educated their male 
offspring. There the Duke of Monmouth, 
the over-ambitious and popular, beloved son 
of Charles II, who made an almost success- 
ful attempt to crowd his uncle off the throne, 
was brought up, and there, also, the most 
brilliant son of James II, — the Duke of Ber- 
wick — whose mother, Arabella Churchill, 
was a sister of the great Duke of Marl- 
borough, got his education, to which he did 
much honour. Perhaps it was a pity that he 
was the illegitimate son. English literature 
would have lost much of the romance that 
Charles Edward and Bonnie Prince Charlie 
inspired, but then also there would have been 
no German blood in the English reigning 
family. But perhapses are stupid. 

We went out the first time in a rickety 
taxi-auto, furnished by the woman at Meaux 
who had taken me out on the battle-field in 
December, just after the battle of the Marne. 
We went by way of Mareuil, through 
Meaux, to take a Senegalese, who had been 
nursed in our hospital, back to his depot, and 
from there, by the route Senlis, across the 
battle-field, towards Supplets, where it began 
on September fifth. 

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The Peak of the Load 

It was a lovely day — sunny, under a pale 
blue sky, silent, with just a puffy little breeze. 
The roads were deserted, as we ran along 
through the wide fields. The only signs of 
life were the big ploughs turning up the 
ground for the winter wheat planting, — 
huge ploughs drawn by four and sometimes 
six great white oxen, moving slowly in the 
foreground, in the middle distance, and sil- 
houetted on the hilltops against the sky-line, 
guided by tall, sturdy, blond youths, in white 
blouses, with a red band about their round 
caps — German prisoners. Their air was as 
placid as that of the big oxen they were driv- 
ing, and the glance they turned on us, as we 
joggled by in our shaky taxi-cab, was as 
mildly indifferent as that of their beasts. 
There was no one in sight to guard them — 
there was no need. I am told that, as a rule, 
they have no desire to escape — that is to 
say, the common soldiers have not. With 
the officers it is different. Many of them 
would get away if they could on account of 
their careers. But the common soldiers are 
good workers. They are treated well. The 
fields of France are better than the trenches 
and butchery. 

I am not going to describe the hospital for 
you. Don't think it. You, with your fifty- 
page Sunday newspapers, and your number- 
less magazines, get all of that sort of thing 
which is good for you. 

[ 91 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

I am afraid that Henrlette was even more 
Impressed by the nurses and the orderlies 
and the stretcher-bearers than she was by 
the wonders of the hospital equipment. She 
thought the American girls " so handsome, 
and so smart," and they were, — but, most 
of all, at tea In the huge white refectory, she 
was Impressed by the cameraderie between 
the men and women, as they sat together 
over their tea. She had never seen anything 
like that before In all her life. She thought 
It charmlng-i — wished the French could ar- 
rive at it, — and declared the American 
women the luckiest in the world, and I sup- 
pose that she Is not far wrong. 

Some time In the future I shall take you to 
Juilly. You will not see foilus done up in 
bandages, or walking on crutches In the 
winding streets of the old village, or lying on 
their mattresses in the sun in the gardens, 
or sitting about In the park. You will not see 
the pretty picture which we saw from the win- 
dow of the Abbe's study — a white-robed, 
white-coifed nurse, sitting on the pedestal 
of the tall statue of Salnte Genevieve, with 
her white-shod feet sticking straight out in 
front of her, and her young head bent over 
a writing-pad, while the setting sun flecked 
the white figures with shadows from the 
moving leaves of the big trees about her. I 
felt as If a sculptor ought to do her as sym- 
bolic. Monsieur VAbhe remarked, " She 

[ 92 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

ought to be writing verses, but I presume she 
is only writing home." I felt myself that 
the home letter was more appropriate, and 
felt it a pity that the home people could not 
have seen the picture — the tired young 
nurse, perhaps just escaped from the operat- 
ing-room (into which I had been allowed to 
peep, because the doctor I had hoped to see, 
and one of the nurses whose visit I was re- 
turning, were there, done up in gauze, and 
unrecognizable, — ), to write home in the 
beautiful, stately, historic park, at the feet 
of the patron saint, whose faith had turned 
back the Hun of ancient times, and whose 
Paris the potlus of to-day defend. But, 
though you will not see that, you are sure to 
find many reminders of the war days, in ad- 
dition to the portrait of the well-known 
American woman who founded and sustains 
this great hospital, and which will for all 
time hang there, with the portraits of the 
great men whose names have been associated 
with the college since its foundation. The 
great park, the wonderful library, the fa- 
mous Salle des Bustes, the charming dining- 
room with its carved wood walls and heavily 
carved doors, and the terraced park, with its 
noble trees and historic associations, will be 
all the more attractive because it has been 
the scene of a fine American effort, because 
American doctors and American nurses have 
for three years already paced its hall, keep- 

[ 93 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

Ing vigil by night and day, and rested their 
tired nerves in the peaceful alleys of great 
trees, adding their mite — and one of the 
noblest — not only to the history of the place, 
but to the cementing of the entente. I speak 
of the Americans, but the nurses are not all 
American. There are British, Canadians, 
and Australians, and there are Belgians and 
French, and I don't know how many nations 
represented in the personnel of the hospital. 
And as they have served the civilian popu- 
lation as part of their work, Juilly will never 
again be just the sort of place it was before 
the war, — for that matter, no place over 
here will. 

We made our return by a shorter route, 
through Trilbardou, and across the Marne 
at He de Villenoy, into Esbly. The bridge 
across the Marne was one of those destroyed 
in September, 19 14. The old bridge was of 
stone. The new one is a temporary one of 
wood — not wide enough for two teams to 
pass. It is in the form of a broken letter Z, 
so that when entering on one side it is im- 
possible to see whether or not the bridge is 
free. There should be a guard there. Once 
there was, but there was none that day. It 
is not a frequented road. So as we made 
the first turn on the bridge, we found our- 
selves face to face with a red cart drawn by 
a tiny donkey. The donkey could not be 
backed, — anyway, he was further across 

[ 94 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

the bridge than we were, — so we had to 
back off, and let him pass. It was rather a 
ticklish operation, but easier with an auto 
than it would have been with a horse. 

The second visit was rather a repetition 
of the first, except that the doctor took us 
over in his car, and we went much more 
quickly, and that we had two little adven- 
tures en route. 

The first was laughable, in a way. You 
know there is no real hunting season any 
more, and the fields are full of game. Part- 
ridges and pheasants run about fearlessly. 
They have forgotten the gun. Perhaps they 
know that Man has too much else to do with 
guns to bother them. It is very pretty to see 
the partridges running in the fields, and not 
flying often, when one is quite on them, — 
though it is such a menace to the crops. But 
it was a hare that we started just out of 
Meaux. It was going to cross the road when 
we rounded a corner. I think it could have 
made the other side, but it did not try. In- 
stead, it started down the road ahead of us 
to race the car. We were going about thirty 
miles an hour, and the hare beat us for ten 
minutes — gaining all the time — until he 
got courage to side jump, and disappear in 
the field. I never would have believed a 
hare could make that pace, if I had not seen 
him do it. 

The second adventure was tragic. 

[ 95 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

Just as we came In sight of Monge we saw 
a smashed aeroplane lying In the field to the 
south, not far from the road. We slowed 
down long enough to make sure that it was 
deserted. We knew it was a recent accident, 
as there was no one near. It was a French 
plane, for one broken wing displayed the tri- 
coloured rosette. There was no one in sight 
when we reached it but a white-bloused Ger- 
man prisoner driving an ox-team in the field 
on the other side of the road; but as we put 
on speed again, we saw, coming towards us 
in a cloud of dust, a French military car, 
and as it approached we saw French officers 
standing, looking off, ready to spring, and 
knew that they were seeking for the machine. 
We hurried away, to learn on arriving at 
Juilly, ten minutes later, that the accident 
had been seen from the upper ward windows, 
and that the ambulance had been out, and 
brought back the two men — both dead. 

Things like that do not upset one to-day 
as they once did. But all the time I was 
walking through the hospital, talking to the 
poilus, I had the dead aviators on my mind. 
It did seem so pitiful to have fallen to death 
over the peaceful sunny fields of their be- 
loved France, under the bovine eyes of a 
German prisoner. To die in an air battle is 
a different thing from dying like that, and 
I could not but pity them, little as death 
seems pitiful to me to-day. 

[ 96 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

While I write all this — I think of the 
battle in Flanders, and of all that France is 
enduring and must endure in the reforming 
of her republicanism. Be sure she can do it. 
All the pacifist disturbances have only shown 
her the necessity, and meanwhile the world 
at large is learning how to judge a nation by 
the results of its efforts and not by the acts 
of its individuals. I suppose those who be- 
lieve that the beauty of life lies in the strug- 
gle are right, but the trying part for me is 
that it looks so much finer in history than it 
does in the doing. That is probably because 
I have not a great and calm mind. 



[ 97 ] 



XI 

October lO, iQiy 

I HAVE just come back from Paris. I 
went up to see what could be done to amelio- 
rate the situation for the winter. We are to 
have almost no fuel. If I can keep a fire 
going in the kitchen and manage a wood fire 
for evenings in the salon, it will be about all 
I can do. But I have laid in, by luck, some 
petrole — taken over from a friend who is 
going to return to the States, — so I have put 
in two petrole stoves — one to heat the break- 
fast-table, and one upstairs, beside my type- 
writer, so that I can write in moderate com- 
fort. It is not a healthy heat — but it is all 
I can do. 

Everything is calm here, in spite of the 
battle going on in the north, and all the polit- 
ical excitement in Paris. 

I am sure that the American papers are 
giving you all the details of the excitement 
stirred up by Leon Daudet. I can only hope 
he has not gone off half-cocked. The papers 
give us no clue to the facts of the case. Un- 
luckily, in all three of the principal books 
which Daudet has published since the war 
broke out, — all rich reading, — he has been 

[ 98 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

so unbridled in his attacks on so many promi- 
nent people, — literary, mondial, and politi- 
cal, — that I can't help trembling. The sort 
of attack he has often made on people about 
whom I know something does not Inspire me 
with unquestioning confidence, although I 
know that almost anyone put under the 
microscope might give some such record as 
Daudet gets with his humorous, often ugly, 
southern temperament. No one questions 
Daudet's patriotism, although he Is an un- 
qualified royalist, — but then, every one has 
always known that. It Is the policy of his 
paper. However, If the hearings — now 
secret — are over and the most dangerous, 
as well as one of the most brilliant, un- 
scrupulous and wicked men in Paris, — is 
caught In the net, I shall feel that the ex- 
citement, unfortunate and untimely as it is, 
has been worth while. I cannot help feeling 
that. In a sense, this Is only the third act of 
the Calmette-Calllaux affair which preceded 
the war, in which Calmette was killed — the 
first of his party " 7tiort pour la Patrie^^^ as 
much as if he had been killed on the battle- 
field. I suppose there is no such audacious 
man in France as Joseph Caillaux. But 
whether he is innocent enough to escape 
always Is the question. 

It is rather a pity that France should have 
to operate upon this ulcer in war-time. But 
the sore has been gathering for a good while, 

[ 99 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

and I suppose the sooner It is attended to 
In a public clinic the better for the country, 
— army, governnient, public service and all. 
It will probably empty out a lot of people 
whom public life — or life at all — will not 
know any longer. You can't deny that It 
takes a plucky nation to gather round an 
operating-table at such a time — If they do, 
and I believe they will. 

The streets of Paris are full of American 
boys In khaki, sombreros, and new tan gai- 
ters, and all behaving as If they were here 
for a sort of glorification. In a sense It Is a 
big adventure for them, and for some It will 
be " //z^ big adventure" — to come over the 
sea, all dressed up In new uniforms, to walk 
about the streets of Paris, before going on 
" out there." No one blames them for en- 
joying It, any more than any one blames 
them for looking rather like the supers In 
a Charlie Frohman border drama. In fact 
every one likes them, just as they arc, and 
the French are quite daft about them. It Is 
a case of " love at first sight," only I am told 
that boys arriving after this are not likely to 
see Paris until they come back from " out 
there." 

On my return trip from Paris I met a 
young officer from the Pacific coast, who, in 
the course of conversation, said to me : " It 
Is odd. These people do not look a bit like 
us. They don't speak our language. I speak 

[ 100 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

very little of theirs. But somehow they arc 
like us. I felt at home with them at once, 
and every day I feel more at home. I don't 
know why it is — can't explain it." 

So you see not all the boys are homesick, 
as I feared they were. 

Speaking of them — the other day a young 
French officer, who is in the aviation corps 
in a camp near St. Nazaire, and who belongs 
to the fleet which goes out to meet the Ameri- 
can transports coming into a French port, 
told me that his first westward flight to pro- 
tect the incoming American troops was one 
of the most thrilling days of his life. I got 
quite excited myself listening to his descrip- 
tion of the flight over the submarine zone to 
meet the fleet, flying so low that he could see 
the khaki-clad lads, in their life belts, packed 
on the decks, waving their caps in the air, 
and Imagined he could hear their shouts of 
" Vive la France! " 

I don't seem to be able to write about any- 
thing to-day but " our boys." 

As for that, every one talks about them, 
and when any of the people here see them 
passing on the grande route, you would 
surely think, to hear the jabbering about it, 
that they had brought the " Glory of the 
Lord" with them. I hope they have. 

Some of their experiences In getting our 
men acclimated are funny enough. For ex- 
ample, the friend with whom I make my 

[ loi ] 



The Peak of the Load 

home In Paris Is an unofficial " aunt" to any 
number of American lads, the sons of her old 
friends and otherwise. The other day she 
had as an unexpected guest to dinner a 
youngster from the flying corps. I went out 
to buy a few things to supplement a war re- 
past up to the appetite of a healthy boy, and 
he went along with me to carry the bundles. 
We ended In a cake-shop — they are not 
shut yet — one of the prettiest In a smart 
quarter, and I made a collection of things 
which I thought a boy with a sweet tooth 
would like, and could not get in camp. 
When I went to the desk to pay, the cashier 
mentioned the sum, but she added: ''Mon- 
sieur has been eating cakes?" 

Instinctively I said " No," to look round 
and find him with his mouth full, and another 
dainty poised at his lips. 

*' How many ? " I asked with a laugh. 

''How many what?" 

"How many cakes have you eaten?" 

"These little things with petticoats? I 
don't know. Three or four." I nodded to 
the cashier. She mentioned the price, and, 
as I paid it, he simply shouted: "What? 
You are not going to pay for those piffling 
little things? Why at home we always 
sample these things in a shop." 

" But you are not at home," I replied. 
" We '11 discuss It outside," and in the street 
I explained the French cake-shop system to 
[ 102 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

him, to his deep amusement. He had only 
been in Paris twenty-four hours, — it was his 
first visit, and this was his first appearance in 
a cake-shop. He could not get over the " ab- 
surdity," as he called it. 

Many of the boys down in the camps near 
Chalons have had the same difficulty in mas- 
tering French ideas and traditions regarding 
fruit hanging on trees. 

You know the American boy's point of 
view regarding fruit in our land, where or- 
chards are big. It is half the fun of being a 
boy. If the farmer catches the young ma- 
rauders at work he chases them with whip 
and bad words, or exercises his skill in throw- 
ing stones. Boys put their thumbs to their 
noses, give the traditional waggle with their 
fingers, and cut for it. 

Here in France it is a crime to steal fruit, 
a crime for which one can be arrested, im- 
prisoned, or fined — and the law is enforced. 
Until the harvest is over one cannot even 
pick up an apple from the ground to which 
it has fallen from a tree overhanging the 
road, without risk of being punished. At 
a certain date, fixed by the commune^ the 
town-crier beats his drum and announces the 
harvest over, and after that date, fruit not 
harvested can be picked up. 

Of course the American boys had never 
heard of this when they came. They know 
all about it now. Some of them have had 

[ 103 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

the fact very forcibly Impressed on their 
minds, to their deep disgust. 

" What," exclaimed one youngster, " we 
have come over to fight for these people, 
and they won't let us pick up an apple? 
What rot! " And It was just there that one 
young American had It emphatically brought 
home to him that he had not come over here 
to " fight for these people," but to fight for 
his own liberty, and that " these people " had 
really been fighting for him for three years, 
and he must hurry up and get ready to " go 
in it" before "these people" were too ex- 
hausted. I suppose it is absurd to put It that 
way, because they are far from done up yet, 
although if there were not something almost 
superhuman in them, they would be. 

Here we have been occupied, all of us, in 
seeing what could be done to dress the chil- 
dren for school this winter. 

It is going to be a hard winter. 

Many of these serious, thrifty women have 
larger families than you think. We have 
over sixty families in the commune who have 
more than three children. There Is one at 
Joncheroy of eight, the oldest only twelve — 
and three pairs of twins. They run together 
in summer, a dirty, gay, barelegged, bare- 
footed troop, each in one ragged garment, 
doing their little chores, picking up brush- 
wood and dragging It home, with the tiniest 
tot trotting after them. But when school be- 

[ 104 ] 



I 



The Peak of the Load 

gins, according to the French school regula- 
tions, they must be cleaned and combed, and 
shod, and I assure you they always are. But 
it is hard work. Of course the French tra- 
dition that puts all public school children 
Into the uniform black aprons is a great help. 

In the three years since the war broke out 
many of these women have had to spend 
their savings. Many of them, with that 
French love of owning land of which I have 
written you, have invested their savings in 
that way. A great many of them own an 
extra house which they rent for 150 fr. to 
250 fr. a year. But no rents have been paid 
since the war began, and they can't eat their 
houses, and would die before they would 
sell. These are things that don't show on 
the surface, and no one complains. How 
can they when the refugees we always have 
with us emphasize the fact that we who have 
not lost our homes are lucky. So it was only 
when It was time for the school to open that 
It was discovered how many children had no 
shoes, and the communal caisse de hienfai- 
sauce nearly empty. However, the Ameri- 
cans came to our assistance, and the children 
went to school. 

Our food problem is going to be a hard 
one. So far as I am personally concerned It 
Is better than It was last year, for I have a 
greater variety of vegetables and plenty of 
apples, and there again the women of the 

[ los ] 



The Peak of the Load 

States have generously helped with con- 
densed milk for the children and old people 
and with large quantities of rice and prunes 
and sugar and such things. So you see that 
far away as I am from you in this quiet place 
where we are always looking at the war, I 
can still bear witness that the loving hearts 
in the States are ever on the watch for our 
needs. If it is more blessed to give than to 
receive — and I know it is — there must be 
many in the States who are happy in these 
days of giving with both hands and full 
hearts. 

Tell me, — over there, are you all for- 
getting, as we are, how it used to be before 
this war came? One thing I know, people 
who expect when this is over to come back to 
the France of before the war are going to be 
mightily disillusioned. The France of the 
old days is gone forever. I believe that all 
over the world it will be the same. We none 
of us shall get back to that, but I have faith 
to believe that we are turning our faces 
towards something much better. If we are 
not, then all the great sacrifice has been in 
vain. 

It is getting cold and late, so this must 
answer for to-day. 

I hope this time I have talked about our 
boys enough to suit you, though I am sure 
you wall always be calling for " more." 

[ io6 ] 



\ 



XII 

November i, igiy 

It would be laughable, if It were not 
tragic, for me to recall how many times in 
the last thirty-nine months I have said " these 
are the worst days of the war." Well, each 
month takes a step forward in endurance, 
and each step forward bears witness to what 
we can endure, if we must. Possibly the 
future holds worse, but we don't know it. 

The desertion of Russia tries our patience 
even here in this quiet place. What must it 
be like "out there"? Of course the Allies 
have got to show great indulgence to Russia 
— it is that, or flinging the nation — with its 
great territory, undeveloped resources and 
future wealth — into the hands of Germany. 
As it is, we can't do much except be patient 
with them — and arrange the matter after 
we get through licking Germany. 

Though I know, as I have known from 
the first, that we were going to do it, I don't 
deny that I study the map to-day with a nerv- 
ous dread of what is before us on the road. 
It becomes us to do that. I own to trembling. 
Why not? We've got the first results of 
the Russian downfall — the terrific drive on 

[ 107 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

Italy, and the loss of all they won in the 
spring — just so much work to do over 
again. 

Don't imagine for one moment that I think 
that these things are disastrous. I don't. 
But there is no use denying that they are — 
unfortunate, and that the loss of so many 
men, so much material, and worst of all, the 
methods by which it is done, are mightily 
upsetting. It stirs still deeper the pacifist 
sets and the cowards — and cowardice has 
no race. It sets the socialists running amuck. 
It disturbs the army, of course, and that's 
the worst of it. But can you wonder? I 
repeat what I wrote you in a recent letter, 
which you evidently had not received when 
you wrote the one now before me — received 
yesterday, and dated October 5th, — about 
the time I must have been writing to you of 
my visit to Jullly, — that the political up- 
heaval Is not so Important as you seem to 
fear. 

Anyway, It has comic opera episodes. 
Here Is one. 

Leon Daudet, who, if he did not open the 
ball, led the most important figure In the 
dance, having dealt out domiciliary visits to 
a number of prominent politicians, in true 
revolutionary spirit, got the same thing 
wished on him. In a counter attack he was 
accused of preparing a royalist plot to over- 
throw the republic. Of course, it never has 
[ '108 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

been any secret that he would, if he could. 
He does not love the present republic. Lots 
of honest French people don't. Amelie 
does n't. She is more royalist than the king. 
But though Leon Daudet is no respecter of 
accepted reputations, and has no bump of 
reverence, he is no fool, and he is a far too 
loyal Frenchman, and too ardently anxious 
for an Allied victory, to undertake any such 
stupid and impossible thing as a " restora- 
tion," in these days of desperate fighting. 
The accusation against him took the form 
of the statement that a depot of arms des- 
tined to put a royalist party in fighting trim 
was found in his office. The depot of arms 
was proved to be one of those ornamental 
panoplies in which men delight as a decora- 
tion. This contained — among other things 
— five revolvers of various patterns, a dag- 
ger in a sheath, two harmless weapons 
marked as souvenirs of a royalist plot of 
other days — perhaps that of Deroulede in 
the time of Felix Faure's death — two coup 
de poing Americain, and half a dozen old 
pistolets of ancient history — a pretty arma- 
ment to equip royalist conspirators in these 
days of the soixante-quinze and the hand- 
grenade. Writers of comic opera ought to 
take notice. Paris laughed, and so would 
an audience. One thing is sure. Daudet has 
scored the first laugh. It looks as if he 
would score something more serious. We 

[ 109 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

may see a procession of men whose faces 
have been more or less familiar to the pub- 
lic, and whose names are not unknown in 
New York, up against a wall at Vincennes, 
with a firing squad in front of them. I for 
one hope so, for the good of the future. 



[ •■• ] 



XIII 

November 26, 1917 
Here we are, almost into December; one 
could have no doubt of It, it has been so 
cold, and I have absolutely no real fuel. We 
have actually done what little cooking there 
is over a fire of chips. Did you ever try to 
do that? I suppose you have when you 
camped out. That is a different thing. I 'd 
adore to have you see Amelie. She arrives 
with her felt shoes — high ones — In her 
sabots. She has a knitted bolero over her 
wrapper, a long knitted sweater over that, 
and a big ulster to top her off, and a knitted 
cap on her head. She does the cooking — 
such as It is — In that attire. Of course this 
means a fire for a couple of hours in the 
morning — the rest of the day no fire at all, 
— and cold suppers. It means going to bed 
with the dark, and putting on mittens to 
read In bed. In this inventive age, I do wish 
some Ingenious person would devise an auto- 
matic book-holder, which would not only 
hold the book at any angle, according to the 
light needed, but turn the pages. 

I 'd love to give you an atmospheric pic- 
ture of what my little cold house looks like, 

[ III ] 



The Peak of the Load 

when I come downstairs In the morning. But 
piercing chill — though it is actually visible — 
cannot be pictured. 

Of course I don't expect this condition to 
last. I Ve cords and cords of wood ordered. 
Some of it will come, I suppose, some day. 

In all ways that I could I provided for 
this. I am done up In flannel. I wear noth- 
ing but velveteens, and am never without a 
fur. I run about out of doors all I can — 
only it is so muddy. I have tried every year 
to put sand on the garden paths, but have 
never been able to get it hauled from the 
He de Villenoy. If I only had had that, I 
could follow what sun there is about the 
house. 

To sadden us all a little, our ambulance 
has been closed, as are all the formations of 
less than fifty beds, — question of heat and 
light. The tiny hospital has been a source 
of great interest and diversion to all of us. 
Ever since people knew it was here, every 
one of the American organizations and a 
great number of private people In the States 
have taken a kindly interest in it — the Red 
Cross, the Comite pour les Blesses Franqais, 
and so many others, like Mrs. Griggs of New 
York, whose name became very familiar to 
nurses and poilus, especially after she visited 
them. In fact, the little Quincy hospital, 
which always flew the Stars and Stripes on 
all American fete days, was by its American 

[ 112 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

friends beautifully equipped and never 
lacked for anything. 

The boys were very happy there. I can't 
tell you how they love being nursed in a small 
ambulance. There is something so much 
more intime, especially when they are con- 
valescent, and can not only sit out in the 
garden, but go to their meals in the huge 
light refectory of the patronage of the town 
— a clean, square room, with well-scrubbed 
deal tables about three sides, and the won- 
derful cook — herself a war widow — pre- 
siding over the big stove at the other end, 
and all the white-clad nurses, including the 
directress herself, distinguished by her blue 
veil, presiding over the service. Needless 
to say, the sort of cooking they got was quite 
different from that possible In the huge hos- 
pitals, and they appreciated it. 

Well, it is closed, alas! and its history 
entered in the record of the commune. We 
shall all miss it. 

As its end was not foreseen, there was con- 
siderable material left over — canned food, 
condensed milk, as well as all the sheets and 
clothing. So, three days after the closing — 
the commune having politely asked my con- 
sent — the town-crier beat his drum at the 
cross-roads, and informed the people of the 
two communes that the wives of men at the 
front, war widows, and the refugees were 
invited to present themselves at the Mairie 

[ i'3 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

next day, when the Maire would distribute 
" les restes des dons Americains " remaining 
at the ambulance. So the Stars and Stripes 
were hung over the door of the Mairie, and 
the distribution was made. 

No one is going to feel the 'uide this will 
make in our daily lives as much as Made- 
moiselle Henriette, who, after three years of 
arduous daily service, finds herself idle, and, 
what she minds more, dressed as a civilian. 

I imagine that we shall not keep her here 
long. She has always consoled herself for 
her humble position, while longing for a 
front line hospital, with the fact that her 
work was hard. So there is small prob- 
ability of her reconciling herself to idleness. 

This morning I had a splendid bonfire — 
burned up all the asparagus bushes in Pere's 
garden. It was smoky work, but I got warm. 
Now I am going to plant tulips, and pot 
geraniums. This last is a joke. I do it every 
year, but I rarely save any. I have no 
proper place to put them away. I have tried 
every place in the house and out, so you can 
guess at the kind of cold we have here. This 
year I have less space than usual, as the 
arrangements for the winter cantonnements 
are more extensive than they used to be. I 
have had to clear out the cellar on the north 
side, where I have always kept coal and 
wood, to make a place there for twenty sol- 
diers. So, if I get fuel, it will have to go 

[ 114 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

into the one on the west side, where I keep 
my garden stuff. 

We have had no cantonnement yet, though 
there is a big one down the hill at Couilly 
and St. Germain. 

Yesterday I saw these men for the first 
time. I went over to Voulangis by train, and 
Amelie drove me to the station. On the 
route nationale I met several soldiers stroll- 
ing up the hill in a uniform that I did not 
know, — far the smartest French soldiers I 
had ever seen, — dark blue (almost black) 
snug-fitting knee-breeches, tight tunics, brown 
leggings and belts and black berets. Just 
before we got to the foot of the hill I heard 
music, and as we turned into Couilly we 
found the street crowded, and saw, advanc- 
ing from St. Germain toward the bridge over 
the Morin, which separates the two villages, 
a big military band filling the street from 
sidewalk to sidewalk, the sun shining on their 
brass instruments as the trumpeters whirled 
them in the air. 

It was a new experience for Ninette. I 
don't believe she had ever seen anything like 
it in all her long life. As it was impossible 
to pass, I got out and went across the bridge 
on foot. I had to thread my way through 
the crowd, among whom were a great num- 
ber of poilus in the same uniform, so I took 
the first opportunity to ask what regiment it 
was, to be told — the Chasseurs Alpins. So 

[ IIS ] 



The Peak of the Load 

I have seen them at last, and a regiment 
wearing a fouragere. 

When I reached home that night — I 
drove from Voulangis — I found Amelie just 
putting Ninette up. I had left her at two 
o'clock. I returned at seven. When I 
asked where she had been, she told me that 
she had put Ninette In the shed at the coal 
man's, and followed the band to the square to 
hear the music, — the square Is just across 
the road, — and that Ninette had enjoyed 
the music, In fact she had danced all the time, 
and was so tired that It had taken her nearly 
an hour and a half to climb the hill. I sus- 
pect that Amelie, who adores dancing, 
judged Ninette by herself. 

The atmosphere Is rather vibrating here. 
All this defeatist propaganda Is trying to our 
nerves and our tempers. It Is logical enough, 
but It Is ringing the death knell of socialism 
among the farmers. The real truth of the 
tension, is, of course, the Russian situation. 
There has been so much sentimentality about 
Russia, and so much ignorance, and every 
day seems to bring its own special disillusion. 
At the time of the abdication of the Czar, 
the event was given considerable dignity 
here. Later, when the menace of the sepa- 
rate peace began to loom up, with Its libera- 
tion not only of the soldiers on the Russian 
frontier, but of the supposed-to-be millions 
of German prisoners, optimists argued that 

[ ii6 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

the Germans who were In Russia at the time 
of the revolution would be more likely to 
sow revolution in Germany than docilely re- 
enter the shambles. Error again. 

My own head gets confused at times. 
Can you wonder that these people about me 
cannot see straight? We have all blundered 
so. I cannot help asking myself if we shall 
blunder on to the end. I really get weary 
of hearing the peace terms of the Allies dis- 
cussed. I know that it has to be, that it is 
absolutely necessary, since the days of secret 
diplomacy are over, that the truth of what 
the Allied nations are struggling for — and 
must have — should be kept eternally before 
the eyes of the world — lest they forget. 
But I long so to think of nothing but licking 
the Germans, and talking after that is done. 
There are moments when I feel that every 
one of us — women and children as well as 
men — ought to be marching out towards 
that battle-line — if only to die there. I am 
laughing while I write that sentence, for I 
have a vision of myself limping along, carry- 
ing a gun in both hands — I could not lift 
it with one — and falling down, and having 
to be carefully stood up again. We mere 
lookers-on encumber the earth at this epoch 
— the epoch of the young and the active. 

There was a time when we used to talk 
of such things as nobility and chivalry. Both 
are with us still. Poets and painters, ro- 

[ 117 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

mance writers and dramatists have glorified 
both in the wars of the past, and shrined 
them under a halo of immortality. The 
future will do that for this war. 

I am getting terribly impatient of words 
— of everything, in fact, but deeds. I am 
beginning to feel as Amelie does. The other 
day there was a criticism of a military opera- 
tion in the English parliament, and she said, 
impatiently: "Well, if I were Haig I would 
simply reply, ' If you don't like the way I am 
doing this thing, just get down off your cush- 
ioned seats, and come out and face the guns 
yourselves.' " 

She does not know whether the benches 
in the House of Commons are cushioned or 
not. For that matter, neither do I. It is a 
short-sighted point of view, but I often feel 
the same way myself. 



[ ii8 ] 



XIV 

December 20, igi7 

Nearly a month since I last wrote. So I 
suppose all through January I shall be getting 
letters of reproach from you. I can't help 
it, and I Ve not an excuse to throw at you, — 
simply had nothing to write about. Things 
are happening every day, everywhere, but 
I am not writing a history of the war, and 
nothing happens here. We are simply hold- 
ing on and smiling, and I suppose we shall 
continue to do that until the boys from the 
States are in real fighting trim. 

The only piece of news at my house is that 
my little kitty, Didine, is dead, and buried on 
the top of a hill in Pere's garden under a 
white lilac bush. It Is absurd to grieve in 
these days for a cat, but he was the only 
affectionate cat I ever knew. I miss him ter- 
ribly, especially in the evenings, when he 
always sat on my knee while I read. 

My English friends at the cantine of 
Meaux have moved on toward the front to 
a place called Serche, near Baisne, in the 
Aisne, in the part of the territory liberated 
last March. There they have a wonderful 
foyer for two thousand soldiers, a cantonne- 

[ 119 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

ment — library, concert hall, tennis courts, 
tea rooms — in fact everything which can 
help the soldiers to feel at home and cared 
for. 

I had a letter from them yesterday, telling 
me that they had arrived safely with their 
saddle-horse and their dog, and that they 
had a royal reception, that they had found 
their little house all ready, — a pretty de- 
mountable structure — for everything there 
had been destroyed, — painted green, and 
most attractively placed. The letter added, 
"There were flowers everywhere — even 
bouquets in each of our bedrooms — but, 
alas! there were no wash hand-bowls." 

I loved that. It is so adorably French. 

I am sure that you are just as much im- 
pressed as we are with the idea that the Eng- 
lish have taken Jerusalem. Shades of Rich- 
ard Coeur de Lion ! Just think of General 
Allenby marching his army piously into the 
Holy City, and writing his name in history 
along with St. Louis and all the bands of 
Crusaders. Yet we are all too occupied with 
nearer things to do more than turn our eyes 
in that direction, give a thought to the stir- 
ring visions it calls up, and then mentally re- 
turn to the nearer battle-field. 

I am going up to Paris for Christmas. I 
am urged, and there seems to be no reason 
why I should not, or for that matter, why 
I should. I will write as soon as I return, 

[ 120 ] 



XV 

January 75, igiS 

Again It is more than three weeks since 
I wrote, but this time I really am not to 
blame. 

I wrote you that I was going up to Paris 
to spend Christmas. I fully intended to be 
back here before New Year's Day, which is 
the great French fete day. It was very cold 
when I left here, and every day the mercury 
dropped a little lower, until it began to snow, 
with the result that I was not able to leave 
Paris until January 5th. 

I had telegraphed Amelie that I would be 
back on Thursday, the 27th, but the weather 
was so bad that it was impossible, and I sent 
word that I would let her know when to 
expect me — as soon as the snow stopped. 
Several days went by before it seemed wise 
to start, and then when I telegraphed, 
Amelie replied that I was to stay where I 
was until our roads were in better condition, 
that the hill was a sheer sheet of ice, and that 
neither the horse nor the donkey could pos- 
sibly climb it. 

So there I was stranded in Paris. By the 
Friday after New Year's, I began to feel 

[ 121 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

pretty desperate, when suddenly there came 
a call on the telephone, and there was Made- 
moiselle Henriette in Paris. She said she 
had just arrived, and that she was going back 
in the morning; that the 215th infantry had 
arrived and was cantonned In the commune, 
that the Captain was going to send a military 
wagon to the station in the morning to fetch 
her, and that she had told Amelie that she 
should bring me back, if I wanted to come, 
and of course I did. 

So Saturday at noon I was In the train, 
where I discovered that the wagon was to 
meet us at Esbly, not Coullly. Mademoi- 
selle Henriette was a little upset when she 
saw my surprise. You see she Is young and 
vigorous, and In good weather she never 
thought of taking the train at Couilly. She 
gaily footed It to Esbly, five miles away. She 
had not even thought how much easier It 
would have been for the horses to take us 
from Coullly — two miles of hill Instead of 
five. 

At Esbly we found the wagon awaiting us. 
You ought to have seen me boosted Into It. 
I sat on a box in the back, so that the adju- 
tant who drove and Mademoiselle Henriette 
could shelter me a bit, — we had no covers. 
My, it was cold ! The wind blew a gale 
from the north. The road was a sheet of 
ice, and the poor horse pulled and tugged 
and slipped. The steepest part of It was 
[ 122 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

through the town of Conde, and I never real- 
ized how steep that road was until I saw the 
horse being led and pushed up it that terribly 
cold day. 

I reached home about frozen, to find the 
house looking gay, and a huge fire in the 
salon, — but no Amelie. They told me she 
had supposed we were coming by Couilly and 
had gone on foot to meet us, with rugs and 
foot-warmer. She got back about ten min- 
utes after we did — in such a state of perspi- 
ration, lugging the big foot-warmer, full of 
hot charcoal, wrapped in a big carriage-rug. 
I expected her to fuss, after making a trip of 
nearly four miles on foot, carrying such a 
bundle. But she did not. I sat behind a 
screen by the fire and thawed out. In spite 
of the fire the house was a refrigerator. 
Amelie told me there had been hot-water 
bottles in my bed all day, as the sheets were 
so cold she was afraid I would get a conges- 
tion; I did not. But I slept with a hot-water 
bottle in my arms and a hot brick in each of 
the bottom corners of my bed. 

The presence of the 215th makes the place 
very gay again. It is a crack regiment from 
the north. Most of the men and fully half 
of the officers are from Lille — men who 
have practically had no news from their 
families since August, 19 14. 

I had a war tea the Sunday after I got 
home — six officers and Mademoiselle Hen- 

[ 123 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

riette sitting round the table — and we 
talked morals and history, philosophy and 
literature — no war. 

There are some charming men in the regi- 
ment — men who in civil life are bankers, 
lawyers and manufacturers — almost no pro- 
fessional soldiers. In the ranks are some of 
the most amusing poilus I have yet encoun- 
tered. For instance, there is a bombardier, 
with a gold bomb on his sleeve, though I 
neglected to ask what it meant. He speaks 
English, and when he heard that there was 
an English-speaking woman in the commune 
he felt that he ought to come and present his 
respects. He came, and gave me a few as 
hearty laughs as I have had since the war 
began. 

He was a queer type. He was pure 
French — born in Lille of French parents, 
but taken to England when he was very 
young by a widowed mother, sent to school 
there, and his home is still at St. Helier, 
vv^here he left a wife and baby. 

I wish you could have heard him, in the 
broadest cockney English, tell the tale of his 
difficulties in getting himself enrolled in the 
French army. 

Born in France, brought up in England, 
never knowing a word of French until he was 
out of school, he had never taken out English 
naturalization papers, and never intended to. 

A few years before the war broke out — 

[ 124 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

at the age of eighteen, he left Jersey, and 
came to France to offer to do his military 
service. He spoke almost no French, and 
fell in with an officer who did not care to 
bother with him, as he did not seem to be 
very well able to explain what he wanted. 
He did not have the proper papers. He did 
not know what he needed, or how to get 
them. He only knew that he had arrived at 
the age when a Frenchman ought to be in a 
caserne. No one else seemed to care a rap 
whether he was or not, so he went back to 
Jersey, with his feelings very much hurt. He 
had wanted to do his duty. No one cared. 
So he went back to his farm, took off his store 
clothes, put on his blouse, and practically 
felt, " Devil take my native land." 

Well, not long after that it looked as 
though the devil was going to obey him. 
Once more he went to Lille. Again he pre- 
sented himself. This time war had begun, 
and he was looked upon as " suspect." How 
dare a man speaking English and French 
equally atrociously, and with no proper 
papers, claim to be a Frenchman? This 
time he was madder still. The military au- 
thorities did not know anything about him. 
Apparently they did want him. A sympa- 
thetic drill sergeant suggested that if he were 
anxious to fight there was always the Foreign 
Legion, and no questions asked. 

''No, I'll be hanged if I do," he said to 

[ 125 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

himself. " I '11 enlist in the English army." 
So off he went to London. But in London 
it was necessary to lie. If he told the re- 
cruiting officer there that he was born a 
Frenchman, of course he could not take him. 
He began by saying he was English, born at 
St. Helier, but he was not a neat liar, and he 
soon got so twisted up that he was frightened, 
broke down, and told the truth; explained 
that he had twice been to France, but as he 
had no birth certificate, was not even sure 
of the date, etc., had never lived in France 
since he was a baby, had no idea how to 
go to work to put himself en regie, so, as he 
wanted to fight, he had thought that England 
might take him. 

The recruiting officer in London was sym- 
pathetic. He took down the facts, and told 
the lad to go home and wait until the matter 
could be straightened out. But the war was 
a year old before he was finally called, and 
entered as the rawest kind of a raw recruit. 

The story itself is amusing, but you should 
have heard him tell it — half in cockney Eng- 
lish, and half in barrack-room French. It 
was killing. I heard more words that were 
new to me than I have heard in an age. I 
wanted to stop him every two minutes, and 
either get a slang dictionary or call for a 
word-of-mouth translation. But he talked so 
fast, and gesticulated so that I managed to 
get it. I nearly upset myself trying not to 

[ 126 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

laugh while he described his early days of 
hurried training. He visualized himself 
standing the first day with the contents of his 
sac about his feet, trying in vain to remem- 
ber the names of all the articles, and to get 
them back compactly into the sac, from 
which the drill corporal had tumbled them. 
He was even funnier when he told about his 
efforts to conquer military etiquette, — to 
salute the proper person and recognize his 
rank at sight, never to salute when he had 
on no head covering, for every one to him 
was "mister" and he had never even heard 
of the shades in salutation. 

But if he was awkward in many ways com- 
pared to some of his comrades, the moment 
he got a bomb or a grenade into his hand it 
was another matter. There he had the ad- 
vantage of having played English sports all 
his life. I never realized that he was a fine 
type until I saw him giving a lesson in bomb- 
throwing out in the fields. When he straight- 
ened up and swung his arm into the air, I 
appreciated that he was a fine type and 
graceful. 

The intense cold shows signs of moderat- 
ing. My tulips are beginning to come up. 

At last Calllaux is in the Sante, waiting to 
be tried for high treason. Well, it is a com- 
fort. He ought to be left there in silence, 
isolated and forgotten, until the war is over. 
But, alas ! although this is really no time for 

[ 127 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

an operation on the great scandal and clear- 
ing up the terrible plotting of which he is 
possibly the centre, it has to be done. We 
have been bringing into force all kinds of 
laws to prevent holding him in silence. 
Merely the habeas corpus is enough. Some 
of our most prized reforms are inconvenient 
at times, aren't they? 



[ 128 ] 



XVI 

February i, igi8 
This morning It looks to me as if all we 
have been dreading since the Russians de- 
serted us is likely to come true. One thing 
is certain. The German offensive is not 
going to be long retarded, and what Is surer 
still is that it is going to be preluded by a des- 
perate German effort to terrorize the civil- 
ians, and break the morale en arriere. Of 
course that Is another bit of false psychol- 
ogy. There is nothing which pulls the 
French together like a blow. 

Of course you know that Paris has enjoyed 
a strange immunity from air raids. While 
England has been attacked night after night, 
Paris has been spared. I 'd hate to tell you 
of all the theories I have heard exploited in 
explanation. I 've had some theories myself. 
There were people who believed that the 
defences of Paris could not be passed by the 
German air fleet. I had for a time the illu- 
sion that perhaps this was true, until I was 
told one day by an aviator that the German 
fleet in the air could attack Paris whenever It 
was ready, and, that while aerial methods 
of attack had made great progress In the 

[ 129 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

past three years, no method of defence was 
by any means a sure protection. 

On dit that the reason for the persistent 
action against England is explained by the 
hesitation of the French to follow England's 
example and give the Germans tit for tat by 
attacking the Rhine towns. As the German 
civilians are much more nervous than either 
the French or English it was necessary to 
terrorize the latter if possible, — and it has 
not worked. Also, in spite of the reluctance 
of the French, they have lately been follow- 
ing England's sturdy lead. It has got to be 
done. The curse will fall on the nation 
which began it — Germany. 

I imagine that, when the cable carried the 
news to you yesterday that, after a long 
freedom from air raids, Paris had been seri- 
ously attacked Wednesday night, and that 
the raid had lasted well into Thursday morn- 
ing, you little dreamed that I had stood in 
my garden, and saw — or rather heard, — 
it all. But I did, and I can assure you that 
it was an experience that I never expected to 
have. 

On Wednesday night I went to bed early. 
I must have got to sleep about eleven. If 
I do not sleep before midnight there is a 
strong possibility of my not sleeping at all, 
— one of my old-age habits. My first sleep 
is very sound. 

I wakened suddenly with the impression 

[ 130 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

that I heard some one running along the ter- 
race under my window. I sat up and listened, 
half believing that I had been dreaming, 
when I saw a ray of light In the staircase — 
my door was open. 

I called out, ''Qui est laf' 

Amelle's trembling voice replied, " Oest 
moi, madame,^^ and I had the sudden wide 
vision of possibilities, which I am told is like 
that of a drowning man, for I realized that 
she was not coming to me In the middle of 
the night for nothing, when she appeared In 
the doorway, all dressed, even to her hood, 
and with a lighted candle in her hand. 

"Oh, Madame," she exclaimed, "you 
were sleeping? You heard nothing?" And 
at that moment I heard the cannon. " Oh, 
mon Dieu, Madame, what Is happening out 
at the front? It is something terrible, and 
you slept! " 

I listened. 

" That is not at the front, Amelie," I ex- 
claimed. " It Is much nearer, in the direction 
of Paris. It's the guns of the forts." At 
that moment a bomb exploded, and I knew 
at once. "It's the Gothas, Amelie. Give 
me something to put on. What time is it?" 

" Nearly midnight," she answered. 

It took me less than ten minutes to dress 
— it was bitterly cold — and I wrapped my- 
self In my big military cloak, put a cap over 
my tumbled hair, and a big fur round my 

[ 131 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

neck, grabbed my field glasses, and went out 
into the orchard, which looks directly across 
the fort at Chelles in the direction of Paris. 

It was a beautiful night, cold and still, 
white wath moonlight, and the sky spangled 
with stars. For three hours we stood there, 
— Pere and Amelie and I, — listening to that 
bombardment, seeing nothing — ignorant of 
what was going on. The banging of the 
guns, the whirring of the motetirs, the ex- 
ploding of shells seemed over us and around 
us — yet we could see nothing. It only took 
us a little while to distinguish between the 
booming of the guns at Chelles and Vau- 
clure, endeavouring to prevent the Gothas 
from passing, by putting up barrage firing, 
and the more distant bombs dropped by the 
liyers that had arrived near or over the city. 

It was all the more impressive because it 
was so mysterious. At times it seemed as if 
one of three things must have been happen- 
ing — either that we were destroying the 
fleet in the air, or they were destroying us, 
or that Paris was being wiped out. It did 
not, during those hours that I stood there, 
seem possible that such a cannonading could 
be kept up without one of these results. It 
v/as our first experience, and I assure you 
that it was weird. The beauty of the night, 
the invisibility of the machines, our absolute 
ignorance of what was going on, the hum- 
ming of the moteiirs overhead, the infernal 
[ 132 ] • 



The Peak of the Load 

persistent firing of the cannon and the terrific 
explosion of the bombs, followed, now and 
then, by a dull glow in the west, was all so 
mysterious. As the long minutes crept by, 
we began to notice details, — for instance, 
that the air battle moved in waves, and we 
easily understood that meant several squad- 
rons of German machines, and we could 
finally, though we could see nothing dis- 
tinctly, realize by the firing that they ap- 
proached, met the guns of the forts — passed 
over or through the barrage curtain, or re- 
tired, and tried again, then, having dropped 
their bombs, swept more to the west, and 
gave place to another attacking squadron. 
They seemed finally to retire in the direction 
of Compiegne and Soissons, pursued by gun 
lire from the forts. 

It was four o'clock when we finally went 
into the house, leaving silence under the stars 
and the moonlit night. Amelie stirred up 
the embers, threw on a little wood, put the 
screen around me, made me a hot drink and 
I sat there to wait for daybreak. It seemed 
strange to go out of doors in the morning, 
and see nothing changed, after such a night. 

We waited impatiently for the morning 
papers. They contained nothing but the 
mere fact that Paris had been bombarded by 
Gothas. There had been victims and dam- 
age, but in comparison with the effort, the 
result had been unimportant. Out of the 

[ ^33 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

twenty-eight German machines which had 
taken part in the attack, only one had been 
brought down — that fell near Vaires, not 
far from Chelles. . 

This was our first experience of the sort, 
and I could not help feeling puzzled that so ^ 
much heavy firing could go on, and out of 
twenty-eight machines only one be touched. 
But that was only my first impression. I 
knew when I came to think it over that it was 
not easy in the night to do more than try to 
keep the enemy off. The more I thought it 
over the more I became convinced that up to 
now there is no very effective way of prevent- 
ing night air raids. 

My letters which came this morning gave 
me some details of the raid, saying enough to 
let me guess w^hat parts of the city were 
reached. They penetrated as far as the 
Avenue de la Grande Armee, and dropped 
bombs also in the vicinity of the Halles, and 
the Gare de Lyons. Every one writes that 
Paris is perfectly calm, although it is evident 
that the government — judging by the rapid- 
ity with which it is preparing systematic pro- 
tection for its population, — believes this to 
be but the beginning of another desperate 
attempt to break the morale of the country. 

There are people at Voisins who claim to 
have seen the Gotha that fell at Vaires. Per- 
haps they did. I did not. 

To-day has been a chilling day. This 

[ 134 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

morning we went on bread rations — one 
pound a day. It is enough for me. 

I have planted my climbing sweet peas. I 
ought to have done it in October. I don't 
know why I didn't, any more than I really 
know why I bothered to-day. One must not 
let one's self grow idle. I know that. But 
I hate having life become mechanical. The 
strain is beginning to tell, and I hate to feel 
that. 



[ 135 ] 



XVII 

February 20, igiS 

Three weeks again. Sorry. 

Mademoiselle Henriette is getting ready 
to go to Salonique, where nurses are needed. 
Ever since our ambulance closed she has been 
very restless, and it grows on her. She had 
been so accustomed to wearing a uniform, 
with three years' service brisques, on her left 
arm, and to feeling herself a part of the 
great army of defence, that to walk about in 
civilian clothes seems to her stupid, and I 
don't wonder. 

Her discontent culminated the other day, 
when we had a very interesting cantonne- 
7nent. The regiment arrived at nine o'clock 
one evening, and there was a military mass 
at the little church at Quincy at nine the next 
morning. One of the captains, a priest, and 
among the bravest men in a brave regiment, 
preached a remarkable sermon. Every one 
v/ent, and of course the little church was not 
a quarter big enough. The soldiers knelt on 
the green In front of both doors, and even in 
the road for the elevation. It was a very 
touching sight. The regiment had just come 
out of the firing line. 

[ 136 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

Poor Henrlette, in her tailored dress and 
hat, felt terribly out of it, — she who, a few 
months ago, would have been kneeling 
among the soldiers in her white coiffe, with 
the red cross on her forehead. She was near 
to tears when she remarked that no one in 
the regiment knew that she, too, had given 
three years of her life to the cause. So she 
must get back into the ranks, and it looks like 
Salonique, — a hard post, but it means sac- 
rifice, and that is what she wants. 

Thus far this month the weather has been 
delightful, and, though mornings and eve- 
nings have been chilly, there have been many 
days when I have not needed a fire, and be 
sure I am grateful for that. 

On St. Valentine's Day I went up to Paris 
— just to change my ideas. I had not been 
up since that terribly cold spell which ended 
early in January. So I had not seen the city 
since the bi^ air raid. Every one had writ- 
ten me details about the changed appearance 
of the city — details as often comic as other- 
wise. I was curious to see for myself. Curi- 
osity killed a cat, you know. 

Well, there are changes, of course, but one 
has rather to hunt for them. Everywhere — 
if one looks for them — large v/hite cards 
are hung on doorways. On them are printed 
in large black letters the words "' ABRIS — 
60 personnesy^^ or whatever number the 
cellars will accommodate, and several of the 

[ 137 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

underground stations bear the same sort of 
sign. These are refuges designated by the 
police, into which the people near them are 
expected to descend at the first sound of 
the sirenes announcing the approach of the 
enemy's air fleet. 

More striking than these signs are the 
rapid efforts being made to protect some of 
the more important of the city's monuments. 
They are being boarded in, and concealed 
behind bags of sand. You 'd love to see it. 
Perhaps you have, already, for I am sure 
that some enterprising photographer is 
busy preserving the record. Sandbags are 
dumped everywhere, and workmen are fever- 
ishly hurrying to cover in the treasures, and 
avoid making them look too hideous. They 
would not be French if they did not try, here 
and there, to preserve a fine line. 

The most important group on the fagade 
of the Opera is thus concealed. You remem- 
ber it, — on the north-east corner — Car- 
peaux's "La Danse." Of course you do, 
because don't you remember we went and 
looked at it together at the time Helene de 
Racowitza's suicide recalled the v/oman who 
posed for the figure of Apollon in the group 
— she who caused the duel in which Ferdi- 
nand Lasalle was killed, and whose affair 
with him inspired George Meredith's 
"Tragic Comedians." Poor Helene, I im- 
agine she was a much more feeble character 

[ 138 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

than Meredith drew her, but she was a 
beauty of the Third Empire sort, and the 
shadow of great men fell over her, and made 
her immortal as an idea, although she out- 
lived husbands, and lover, youth, beauty, and 
prestige. Still, one cannot pity too much the 
woman over whom a famous author threw 
a mantle of greatness during her lifetime. 
It w^as unfortunate that she could not have 
lived up to it. She tried hard at the time 
that she wrote " Princesse et Comedienne," 
but the difficulty was that in her memoirs she 
got herself terribly mixed up with the liter- 
ary portrait Meredith drew of her. 

The Rude group on the Arc de Triomphe, 
the only real work of art in its ornamenta- 
tion, has also gone into retirement, and so 
have the doors on the west front of Notre 
Dame, and famous equestrian Louis XIV 
groups from Marly-le-Roi, which adorn the 
entrance to the Champs-Elysees, and the en- 
trance to the Tuileries garden opposite. The 
latter have funny little chalets built over 
them. 

You might think that rough work of this 
sort would disfigure the city we love. But 
on my word, it does not. I really believe I 
love it all the better, — dear, menaced Paris. 
Perhaps it is because it has been and still is, 
in danger, that we realize anew the immortal 
charm. I cannot put into words just how I 
feel about it, but I imagine you will under- 

[ 139 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

stand. Every one of those hoardings and 
all these sacks of sand seem like italics to 
draw my attention to how dear it all is to 
me. We are so prone to take the beauty we 
find in life as a matter of course. 

Possibly you, who have not seen Paris for 
four years, might find more changes than I 
do, who have watched it all the time. 

I often wonder how it would look to you, 
who only knew it in its better days. I have 
no way to establish a standard. I have seen 
the change, of course — but only little by 
little, and never losing any of the charm. If 
it is really much altered I don't know it. 
Just as one has to shake one's self hard to 
realize the slow changes which time brings to 
the faces of those whom we love, so am I 
unconscious of the changes the war has 
brought on Paris. I know that in some parts 
of the city there are fewer people in the 
streets. I know that in the centre of the city 
one finds still much movement, though it has 
changed its character. The soldiers of all 
nations have done that. To me it has never 
looked more beautiful than it does in these 
days. Its loveliness simply strikes terror to 
my heart for fear of what might be, now 
that the Germans are so desperate. 

My visit was not altogether a peaceful 
one. 

Perhaps I never told you that one of my 
Paris friends, whenever she thinks I am stay- 

[ 140 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

ing away from town too long, has a habit 
of writing to me, and promising that if I 
will come up to town they will try and ar- 
range an air raid for me. I never had hap- 
pened to be there during one. She used to 
say, " You really have seen so much, that it 
would be a pity not to be in one of these 
raids before the war ends." Of course, that 
was before the attack of January. Since 
then, there has been no need to arrange such 
a thing merely as experience. I have had it. 

All the same; they brought it off on Sun- 
day night- — the 17th. Thank you, I did not 
enjoy it at all. It was an absolutely in- 
effective raid, as far as doing any damage 
went. But we did not know that while it 
was going on. I would not have believed 
that so much noise could do so little harm. 

Of course the papers tell you how calm 
Paris is. It is. But don't let that lead you 
to suppose that an air raid is anything but a 
very nasty experience. I imagine that very 
few people are afraid of death to-day. Few 
as the air raids have been, Parisians have 
already learned that the guns for the defence 
make most of the noise. The explosion of 
the bombs, if rarer, is a more terrible sound. 
But what is hard to bear, is the certainty 
that, although you are safe, some one else 
is not. 

I suppose that if I don't tell you what we 
did and how we passed the night, you '11 ask 

. [ 141 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

me later, and then I may have forgotten, 
or had first impressions overlaid by other 
events. 

Well, Sunday evening we had just gone to 
bed. It was about ten o'clock. I was read- 
ing quietly when I heard a far-off wailing 
sound. I knew at once what it was. My 
hostess and I tumbled out of our beds, un- 
latched the windows so that no shock of air 
expansion might break them, switched off all 
the lights and went on the balcony just in 
time to see the firemen on their auto as they 
passed the end of the street, sounding the 
" Gave a vous^^^ on their sirenes, — the most 
awful, hair-raising wail I have ever heard 
— like a host of lost souls. Ulysses need 
not have been tied to the mast to prevent his 
following the song of this siren ! 

We were hardly on the balcony, when, in 
an instant, all the lights of the city went out, 
and a strange blackness settled down and 
hugged the housetops and the very sidewalk. 
At the same instant the guns of the outer 
barrage began to fire, and as the night was 
cold, we went inside to listen, and to talk. 

I wonder if I can tell you — who are never 
likely to have such an experience — how it 
feels to sit inside four walls, in absolute dark- 
ness, listening to the booming of the defence, 
and the falling of bombs on an otherwise 
silent city, wakened out of its sleep. 

It is a sensation to which I doublt if any 

L H2 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

of us get really accustomed — this sitting 
quietly while the cannon boom, and now and 
then an avion whirs overhead, or a venture- 
some auto toots its horn as it dashes to a 
shelter, or the occasional voice of a gen- 
darme yells angrily at some unextinguished 
light, or a hurried footstep on the pavement 
tells of a passer in the deserted street, brav- 
ing all risks to reach home. 

I assure you that the hands on the clock- 
face simply crawl. An hour is very long. 
This raid of the 17th lasted only three quar- 
ters of an hour. It was barely half-past 
eleven when the berloque sounded from the 
hurrying firemen's auto — the B-flat bugle 
singing the "all clear," — and, in an instant, 
the city was alive again, — noisily alive. 
Even before the berloque was really audible 
in the room where we sat, I heard the people 
hurrying back from the ahris, — doors 
opened and banged, windows and shutters 
were flung wide, and the rush of air in the 
gas pipes told that the city lights were on 
again. 

I don't find that the people are at all panic- 
stricken. Every one hates it. But every 
one knows that the chances are about one 
in some thousands, — and takes the chance. 
I know of late sitters-up, who cannot change 
their habits, and who keep right on playing 
bridge during a raid. How good a game it 
is I don't know. Well, one kind of bravado 

r 143 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

Is as good as another. Among many people 
the chief sensation is one of boredom — it is 
a nuisance to be wakened out of one's first 
sleep; it is a worse nuisance to have proper 
saiit de lit clothes ready; and it is the worst 
nuisance of all to go down into a damp cellar 
and possibly have to listen to talk. But, oh 
my! what a field for the farce-comedy writer 
of the days after the war. It takes but little 
imagination to conjure up the absurdities of 
such a situation that the play-maker can com- 
bine in the days when these times can be 
looked at from a comic point of view. 

I came back from town on the i8th. I 
found everything quiet here. The only news 
is that my hens are beginning to lay — but 
so are every one's. While my hens did not 
lay, eggs went up to fifteen cents a piece. 
To-day, when I get three dozen a week, I 
can buy them, two for five cents. The eco- 
nomics of farming get me. There must be 
a way of making hens lay all the year round. 
It is to be one of my jobs next year to learn 
the trick. 



[ 144 ] 



XVIII 

March g, igiS 

Well, we have been having some very 
droll weather, and the weather is a safe 
topic, especially when you seem to read be- 
tween the lines of my letters that I am get- 
ting demoralized, and at what you choose to 
call an unnecessary moment, with so many of 
"our boys" landing every week. That's 
all right, but though they are here, they are 
not ready, and there you are. 

But weather? 

I told you that February was a very pretty 
month. It often is in France. We had some 
lovely nights, when I used to go out in the 
moonlight, and look up in the starry dome 
and pick out the constellations I knew. But 
I seemed the only one here who enjoyed 
them. Every clear night seemed to offer an 
open road to the Gothas. It is a pity to live 
in a time when a lovely night simply stands 
for a menace. As long as the February 
moon lasted Amelie went home in a nervous 
tremble every evening. She simply hates the 
night attacks, although there is not the least 
real danger here. 

The thing that torments me is the feeling 

[ 145 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

that this aerial activity presages the German 
offensive. We all know It Is coming — our 
aeroplanes have announced that the Germans 
are concentrating their forces on our front 
— but when — where — on that long line? 
If any of them knows at headquarters, they 
are not, naturally, telling. 

I am afraid that no one was sorry when, 
on the first, the snow began to fall. It lasted, 
off and on, five days. Every night Amelle 
said, as she closed the shutters, " Well, let 
us get a good night's rest. The Gothas can- 
not go to Paris to-night." When it ceased 
snowing, early Wednesday morning, there 
was a foot on the ground. But the sun came 
out, and by evening there was no snow at 
all, and Amelle was sad again. 

On Thursday — that was the 7th, — I 
worked all day In the garden, setting out 
rose bushes, and though it was a beautiful 
night, everything was calm. But last night 
was a trying one. It began earlier than the 
one in January, and it did not last as long, 
but It was worse while It lasted. It was only 
a little after nine o'clock, and I was on the 
terrace, and the house was not shut up, when 
the first gun of warning from the forts was 
fired. Some one up the hill called, "What's 
that?" and another voice replied, "Paris." 

I hurriedly closed my shutters, and put 
out the lamp I had just lighted, and went 
into the garden to watch and wait. 
[ 146 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

The battle of last night was quite different 
from the previous ones. This time, there 
were no aeroplanes in the air, except the 
Boches'. The forts in front of us — Chelles 
and Vaujours — not only used their artillery 
to put up a barrage, they had their search- 
lights on most of the time, and sent up at 
intervals a series of fusees eclairantes — so 
pretty as they followed one another in a 
line — they were usually four in a series — 
and now and then a rocket. It might have 
been fireworks — only the Gothas went right 
over our heads in three distinct waves, flying 
so low in an early evening, not at all dark, 
that we frequently saw them, when caught 
by the rockets or searchlights. We could 
not be sure when they succeeded in passing, 
but the explosion of bombs in Paris told that 
soon enough, while the noise of the machines 
over our heads told when they were actually 
turned back. 

I must tell you an amusing thing. Amelie 
has always insisted that she could tell a 
Boche machine by the sound of its motepr. 
Perhaps she can. She says always, " Listen, 
now! Can't you hear that Boche? His 
mote'ur grunts f^st like a pig" (of course 
this is funnier and more significant in French 

— comme un cochon), "but ours make music 

— they sing!" Pretty idea? Well, the 
beauty of it is, I repeated it to an aviator the 
other day as a joke. He looked at me seri- 

[ 147 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

ously and replied, '^ But it is absolutely true." 
Evidently I am sometimes stone deaf. 

It was midnight when I came in, and that 
is how it happens that I am writing to you 
very early in the morning — just daybreak, 
because, I suddenly decided, in a sleepless 
night, that I needed a change of scene. The 
only one available is to go to Paris, and talk 
it over in English instead of French. So I 
am sending these few words for fear that if 
I am detained longer than I plan — and in 
these days one never knows what may hap- 
pen — there will not be again too long a 
lapse in my letters. 

Oh, I really must mention the British going 
to Jericho, or you will think that I have my 
eyes so fixed on local things that even my 
mental vision cannot look over the horizon 
line. Nice idea, isn't it — the Australian 
cavalry riding into Jericho? We've wished 
Jericho on so many people in our time that 
it is comforting to think that, finally, some 
one has really gone there — and history has 
recorded it. 



[ 148 ] 



XIX 

March 17, 1918 

Your letter just received remarks that I 
seem to do a deal of "gadding" in these 
days. Well, I told you in my last that I was 
going again, and I did. I went the day I 
wrote to you, — that was the 9th, and came 
back day before yesterday. Apparently I 
must have forgotten to tell you that, after 
all these months, the Commander of the 
Fifth Army Corps had decided to give me a 
permis de circider good for three months. 
That is how it happens that I can " gad," as 
you call it. I am afraid that you cannot 
realize just what it means after years of such 
restrictions as I had to support, to be free 
to move without explaining each time, fixing 
the date a fortnight in advance, and then 
waiting in uncertainty as to whether the 
simple request would be granted or not. It 
inspires one to move on a bit, when it is not 
absolutely necessary, just for the joy of feel- 
ing free. 

On the way down the hill to Couilly on 
Saturday, the day I left, we met the 89th 
Infantry marching in from Lagny, where 
they had been resting for some weeks, to 

[ 149 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

canton on our hill, and I was half sorry that 
I was leaving, especially as air raids are of 
almost nightly recurrence, and Amelie, who 
hates them, worries when I am away. It is 
useless for me to explain to her that in town 
I stay in a part of the city which is practically 
safe — well to the south-west, in an apart- 
ment on the second floor of a six-story build- 
ing. Bombs which fall on a house rarely go 
through more than three stories, and those 
that burst in the street seldom damage above 
the first floor. Amelie is always, in these 
days, looking for the surprising and the un- 
expected. I fancy she would feel happier 
if she could be assured that at the first sound 
of the alerte I would make for an abri with 
an electric lamp in my pocket, a camp-stool 
in one hand, a shovel in the other, and a 
pickaxe over my shoulder. Then there 
should be a maid behind, with a bucket of 
water, a hoiile chaude, a flask of cognac, a 
cushion for my back, and a rug for my knees 
— in fact, " all the comforts of home." But 
she knows that I would much prefer to be 
killed outright than suffocated in a cave. 

As I had anything but a comfortable time 
at home the night before I left, I really 
could not see what difference it made where 
I was. One side of the tir de barrage seemed 
to me as good as the other, though I will con- 
fess that I prefer to listen out of doors, in 

[ 150 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

the air, than shut up In a room, even when 
honours are easy as to danger. 

The last words Amelie said to me were 
" I do hope the Gothas won't go to Paris 
with you this time." But they did. 

However I had a good night Saturday, 
and passed a quiet Sunday, resting in a cosy 
room, free from any responsibility, and talk- 
ing about anything that was not war, and I 
enjoyed it. But I paid up for It that night, 
when, just as I was getting Into bed, that 
abominable sirene went wailing through the 
street, and almost at the same moment the 
bombs began to fall. This was even before 
we heard the barrage, and then, for three 
long hours and more, the cannon boomed, 
the machine guns spat, and the bombs ex- 
ploded. It was a simply infernal racket. 

If you want an example of how some of 
the simple people take it, here is one. The 
bonne in the house where I visit is a girl 
from Nimes, who used to live in a convent. 
Needless to say that she is very religious. 
She has no sense of fear. Perhaps she does 
not know enough to be afraid, — maybe I 
wrong her. She sleeps in the top of the 
house. The only thing she, who loves her 
bed, hates,. is being waked up. Her orders 
are to come downstairs, when the alerte be- 
gins. But she rarely does. On that night, 
for some reason, possibly because there was 
a bad fire, she came down. The house was 

[ 151 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

chilly, so she was told to He on the sofa In 
the dining-room. She obeyed, and fell asleep 
at once, and peacefully slept right through 
it all. 

When it was over I went to the door and 
called her, told her that it was over, and that 
she could go up to bed. 

She rose, sleepily, looking a bit dazed, and 
then said: "Is it over, Madame?" Then 
she piously blessed herself, and in a hurried 
voice, just as you have heard people mur- 
mur their prayers sotto voce, she added, 
" God pity those less lucky than we have 
been," and went back to bed. I am positive 
that she was asleep in five minutes, and as I 
already know those who claim to have slept 
through raids it may be possible that I am 
wrong about people not becoming accus- 
tomed to them, and that, if they go on fre- 
quently, we may all sleep right through. 

I suppose that you know that the govern- 
ment conceals, as far as possible, all the dam- 
age done by these air raids. The newspapers 
give no details. The part of the city dam- 
aged is never mentioned. The official an- 
nouncement contains merely the fact that the 
raid began at a certain hour, that there was 
or was not material damage done, when it 
ended, and whether or not there were vic- 
tims. Of course the people in the vicinity 
hit by the bombs know, and the muzzled 
newspapers know, but you would be sur- 

[ 152 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

prised at the small excitement there Is. The 
object of the silence is, of course, to conceal 
from Germany the result of these raids. 
I Ve my doubts if that is possible. It seems 
to me that nothing can be concealed from 
them. I 'm not sure that, in some diabolical 
way, they don't know what I am writing to 
you this very minute. But if the reticence 
does not achieve that object, it proves very 
effective in circumscribing excitement, which, 
under the old reporting methods, would have 
been inevitable, and the effects of the raid do 
not become the one topic of the day's con- 
versation in the streets. This raid was an 
especially disastrous one, as there was a fire 
in an important part of the city. Yet it was 
only by the merest accident that, forty-eight 
hours later, I passed through the famous 
quarter which was most damaged, and al- 
though it was wonderfully cleaned up, — the 
fire department goes to work at once, — and 
even daylight which follows the raid finds 
many traces removed — it seemed to me that 
for half a mile on both sides of the Boule- 
vard St. Germain, where it runs between 
the government buildings, there was not a 
whole pane of glass — yet there was no ir- 
reparable harm done, and the loss of life 
was not heavy. 

Amelie met me at the station when I came 
home. In a very nervous frame of mind. She 
literally yanked me out of the train, and 

[ 153 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

said emphatically: ''Well, thank God, here 
you are. You are not going to Paris again 
until these raids are over. It makes us all 
too nervous. You are better off at home." 

When I got up the hill and saw what had 
happened here I did not blame her for being 
nervous, although I confess that I could not 
see that one place was any improvement on 
the other. Thirty bombs and a torpedo or 
two had been sprinkled along the valley from 
Vaires to Crecy-en-Brie. A big bomb fell 
in the field on the other side of the route 
nationale, and made a hole fifteen yards 
square and nine yards deep. Five bombs 
fell on Bouleurs, and a torpedo, which did 
not explode, fell the other side of Quincy in 
what is called the " terre noirey The bomb 
which fell near the chateau shook the whole 
hill, and it was quite evident that it had 
shaken Amelie's nerves, and that she had 
not recovered. 

The result is that^ there is a general fit of 
trembling everywhere, and it is the fashion 
here to sleep in the caves. There is a ma- 
chine gun set up at the Demi-Lune, the water- 
mains on the top of the hill — the Paris 
water from the Ourcq passes there — have 
been examined, as have our local mains, — 
Couilly has running water — and hose at- 
tached. The firemen, of whom I have never 
heard before, have materialized. All this 
active preparation for a local defence ought 

[ 154 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

to calm the people, but, of course, It does 
not. It only emphasizes the fact that It Is 
necessary, and to them, waiting so long in 
suspense for the beginning of a spring ac- 
tion, seems to presage hard days. 

There have always been rigid rules about 
lights here from the first air raids, so long 
ago. They have been forgotten, with the 
result that thirty people were fined to-day 
for uncovered lights, and the rules are made 
more rigid than ever. I have been notified 
that my shutters are not sufficient, and have 
to hustle to get some sort of heavy inside 
curtains for a house which at this momxcnt 
seems all doors and windows. The truth 
is, the part of my house where the lights 
show Is the guest chamber, never used except 
when the soldiers are here, as they are now. 

All circulation In the roads after dark Is 
forbidden. Wagons cannot carry lights, nor 
foot-passenger lanterns. It has been the 
habit for people from Coullly to come run- 
ning up the hill, lantern In hand, to watch 
the raids on Paris from here, and there Is a 
theory that It was these lanterns on the road 
which drew the bombs on the hill Sunday. 
It may be, but as there was a big cantonne- 
ment of troops here that seems a better ex- 
planation, while It Is not unlikely that some 
of the Gothas which failed to get through 
the barrage, not wishing to return to their 
base, carrying their bombs with them, may 

[ 155 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

simply have dropped them any old place. 
All these things are guesses, of course. 

The weather is lovely. I am getting a lot 
of work done in my garden — among other 
things, sand laid in all the paths, — after 
trying for four years. The poilus did it for 
me. It will make life much easier, as I can 
walk in the garden in winter. It will also 
be a comfort to Amelie, as I shall not track 
in the mud, and neither will Khaki and Dick. 



[ 156 ] 



XX 

March 28, 191S 

Can it be less than a fortnight ago that I 
wrote to you? My letter-book says so, but 
it is hard to believe. I seem to have lived a 
century since. 

The cables have told you the mere facts, 
of course. You know that the long-expected 
offensive presaged by the concentration of 
the German hordes from the Russian fron- 
tier began on the 21st, when they were flung 
against our lines, from Cherizy in the north 
to Panisiaux Bois in the south, and that, in 
six days, the Allies have lost all their hard- 
earned advances of three years. In six days 
all the sacrifices of three years have been 
rendered vain, and last night our line was 
sixty miles, in some places, west of where it 
had been on the morning of March 21st. In 
the lost land are the scenes of so much hard 
fighting, land over which the Allies had crept 
inch by inch — all lost in six days, — Peronne, 
Bapaume, Ham, Roye, Noyon and oh! how 
many tragic hilltops, and how many spots 
where our beloved dead lie buried! 

But even though you read these things, 
you have no idea of what the week has 

[ 157 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

meant to us living so near it, to us, who, day 
after day, have followed the brave boys in 
the advance, and felt, as they felt, that no 
inch of ground gained could be lost again. 

The hours of those first days will always 
be unforgettable hours of tragedy. I have 
many times written of the dread we have 
felt of some such thing ever since the Ger- 
mans were in a position to remove their de- 
fensive army from the east. But never, in 
my greatest anxiety, did I dream of this. 

March 21st was a beautiful Thursday. 

Louise and I were working in the garden. 
I was setting out pansies in the bed under the 
elderberry bushes, on the side of the hill. 

It was during the morning that I began 
to hear far-off guns, but I took little notice, 
until after noon, when the booming became 
so heavy that the very ground in which I had 
my hands seemed to tremble under me — or 
was it my hands that were trembling? I 
don't know. 

It lasted all day, and the guns were still 
thundering when I went out on the lawn 
before going up to bed, — to look off to the 
north. 

At intervals I heard it all night, and once, 
in the night, I went out to look, and could see 
the lights in the sky, and now and then a 
rocket. I heard the voices of Pere and 
Amelie, and knev/ that they were hanging 
out of their window, watching the north also. 

[ 158 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

I cannot tell you what the sleepless sus- 
pense, and the waiting for the morning was 
like. I was still in bed, waiting for Amelie 
to arrive on the morning of the 22nd, when 
I heard some one running along the terrace, 
and a voice called: ^^Voiis etes eveilleej 
Madame?'' 

I went to the window. 

There stood my next-door neighbour, 
white as a sheet. 

"Oh, Madame," she cried, "the Germans 
have attacked our line on a front of ninety 
kilometres. We are retreating on the whole 
line. My God, my God!" And she went 
on down the hill to carry the news to Voisins. 

Even while I was standing, stupefied, I 
heard the drums beating the assemblage gen- 
erale in Voisins, for the 89th Infantry are 
still with us. 

By the time I was dressed the boys were 
coming in relays to say " good-bye," and to 
announce that the camions were coming at 
eleven. 

The morning was a repetition of that of 
last spring, when the 11 8th advanced to 
Soissons. 

It was impossible to work. No one could. 
It was just after noon that the camions 
began to arrive. 

As the trees are not yet leaved out, I could 
see, from the lawn, the long line of grey 
camions drawn up at equal spaces from each 

[ 159 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

other all along the route to Meaux, and, at 
intervals, the soldiers, sac an dos, standing 
in groups ready to mount to their places. 

It was two o'clock when they began to 
move, and from that time, night and day, 
until Sunday morning of the 24th, the line of 
advancing troops, cannon, artillery, field- 
kitchens, — was absolutely unbroken. They 
occupied all the roads about us, even that on 
the canal. Along the route nationale and the 
route du canal of Meaux they moved, rum- 
bling at top speed, about ten yards apart, 
and along the route towards Esbly, through 
Conde, wound all the horse-drawn vehicles 
and the cavalry. Overhead hummed the 
aeroplanes, keeping watch. 

Every day the news that came was bad. 
Every day the Allies were being driven back, 
and last night they were within twelve miles 
of Amiens, already evacuated. 

To make the whole situation sadder, by 
Sunday night, the refugees, driven for the 
second time from their homes, began to pass 
through over all our routes. That is what 
brings panic. It would carry it as far as 
Paris, if Paris had to see it, but in the city 
the movement is concentrated about the Gare 
du Nord, and the Gare de I'Est, and there 
the organization is wonderful. In the entire 
evacuation I am told that the American boys 
are doing heroic work. 

All the week I have fought against panic 

[ 160 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

here. Faith, you understand, I am sure, had 
received a hard blow. Fear seemed sud- 
denly to have taken root everywhere, a thing 
I have never seen here before, — fear that 
the Germans were too strong In numbers 
still, and the Americans not only unprepared, 
but not yet numerous enough to turn the bal- 
ance, for In the first few days before Amiens 
the Allies fought, at times, one to six, and 
some say, at an even greater disadvantage. 

To make the situation all the harder for 
the civilians — for they had to get hold of 
their nerves, and they did it, — the Germans 
threw all their resources against us at once, 
not only at the front against the armies, but 
against the civilians in the rear; It was the 
very exaggeration of their warfare of terror. 

On Saturday morning, the third day of the 
battle, — at about half-past seven — as I was 
sitting in the garden listening to the guns, 
I heard an explosion in the direction of 
Paris, and, while I was wondering what it 
could mean, the church bells all along the 
valley began to ring out an alerte. I had 
not heard a sound even resembling a moteur 
in the air and the sound from Paris was not 
In the least like that made familiar by the 
air raids. Besides, the Germans have never 
attempted an air raid by daylight, although 
the English have. It could not have been 
more than a half hour later that there was 
another sound exactly like the first in the 

[ i6i ] 



The Peak of the Load 

same direction. But this time there was no 
alerte, and there was no noise of the guns for 
the defence of the city against avions. At 
regular intervals all day, while we read the 
trying news from the front, — eighty divi- 
sions of German soldiers thrown against the 
British — we heard that sound from Paris 
repeated. 

About half-past four In the afternoon 
Amelie's nephew, a lad of sixteen, who 
works in an ammunition place, arrived from 
Paris — his train over an hour and a half 
late — with the news that Paris was being 
bombarded from the air — that the attack 
began a little after seven — that there had 
been no alerte until after the bombardment 
began, and, that up to the time he left, no 
German avions had been heard by the listen- 
ing posts anywhere, and yet once in about 
fifteen minutes a bomb fell. 

That was all very mysterious. 

I asked him If much damage had been 
done, and If there was any panic. 

He said he had heard that several people 
had been killed, but there was no panic. 
When the sirenes went through the streets 
after the first bomb, people ran, as usual, for 
the ahris^ but as silence followed they gradu- 
ally came out into the streets, and stood 
about, gazing up into the air. No sign of 
any air machine — any Boche — had been 
seen. When the lad left Paris there was a 

[ 162 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

spirit of curiosity rather than alarm, and the 
only harm he had actually seen was a news- 
paper kiosk, near the railway station, de- 
stroyed, and a hole in the ground. That 
looked serious enough, considering the situa- 
tion. But " a miss is as good as a mile." 

The next day, Sunday — a day too beauti- 
ful to look on such horrid deeds — we got 
the explanation. It seemed inconceivable, 
but it is evidently true. The latest war ex- 
ploit of the Huns is a gun set up — so the 
aviators say — somewhere near La Fere, 
where the Yorkshire boys fought their last 
battle before retreating here in September, 
1 9 14, — a gun which is bombarding Paris 
at a distance variously stated at from sixty- 
five to eighty miles, — either distance seems 
equally incredible, but it is evidently true. 
The military authorities are said to have It 
placed. The question is to destroy It. But 
you probably heard all about this by cable. 

The son of one of my neighbours who Is 
at home on leave — he is an aviator to-day; 
he was a farmer in 19 14, — said, as we were 
listening to this gun yesterday, for it is still 
at work : 

*' Madame, this Is war. If we want to 
win, we have got to get rid of all our civilian 
ideas. If nations do not want to put up with 
things of this sort, why they must find an- 
other way than war to settle their disputes. 
No one would be In the least sentimental 

[ 163 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

about killing a tiger and its whelps. Why 
pretend to a finer feeling about an enemy 
more dangerous than a tiger — an enemy so 
dangerous that even when we get him down 

— and we shall — I don't see how the world 
can go on unless we exterminate him, even if 
it takes this generation. If we, stupidly, do 
not, then we must suffer for it later. Be sure 
of one thing, if the Bodies get us down, 
they '11 wipe us out. The whole earth is not 
big enough for both of us." 

Anyway, there is a point of view for you. 

On the fourth day of the bombardment of 
Paris, while every one was divided between 
anxiety about the battle in the north and 
pride at the superb spirit of desperate resist- 
ance of our armies, I got a letter from Paris 
which gave us all a good laugh — for I trans- 
lated for Amelie, knowing that she would 
tell it everywhere — and better it in the tell- 
ing. It spoke of the splendid spirit of the 
bombarded capital, which had already re- 
turned to normal life — tramways running, 
street-life calm, school-children in the radius 
of the bombardment being taken out of dan- 
ger; and it told of the first effort to announce 
the beginning of the daily bombardment by 
an alerte to be given by the city police, who 
were ordered to beat a drum in the streets 

— a sort of city revival of our country town 
crier. The Sergent de Ville, who has his 

[ 164 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

amour propre, protested. He did not know 
how to drum, — drumming is a metier like 
any other. The city replied, "Never mind 
that. Put the drum on. Take these two 
sticks, and go along pounding. We 've no 
time to give you lessons. Every one will 
know what it means." 

They were properly humiliated, but they 
had to obey. Away they had to go, beating 
their drums, and beside them marched the 
gamins of Paris, pounding on tin cans, and 
whatever would make a noise. Of course 
all Paris roared with laughter. The blush- 
ing Sergents de Ville returned to their posts, 
and they never went out any more as drum- 
mers. Isn't that deliciously Paris? Too 
bad Mr. Hohenzollern could not have seen it. 

But though this made a short diversion 
here we did not laugh long. Yesterday it 
looked dangerously like a panic again. For 
a few hours it seemed as if all our efforts 
could not prevent people here from evacuat- 
ing the place, — without orders. If the news 
had not been better this morning I hate to 
think what might have happened. 

Last night we heard no guns. This morn- 
ing's communique announced that the Ger- 
man advance has been practically stopped — 
at all events the Allies are holding them — 
the breaches in the line have been filled — it 
is unbroken — but after a retreat of nearly 

[ i6s ] 



The Peak of the Load 

sixty miles, and all they have worked for and 
won inch by Inch, lost from Noyon north, 
except a bit of Flanders. 

It is a sin to look back, I know. Our road 
lies In the future. I hope no one over there 
whom I love will ever have to fight depres- 
sion as I have fought it since a week ago 
to-day. I suppose the turn of you across the 
water is coming. Still, you will never have 
to see poor women and little children flying 
from their homes, as we see them every day. 
They never complain. They are grateful 
for the slightest sympathy. They Invariably 
tell you of cases they know of people so much 
worse off than they are. 

I hope you are not worrying about me. I 
could not write you all these details if I did 
not know — was not sure — - that long be- 
fore you read it, the situation will be changed 
for the better, that the cable will have reas- 
sured you, so that all this will only be inter- 
esting to you, who want to know always the 
truth about my life. 

They tell us at the Mairie that, while the 
Boches may advance a little at one point or 
another in the line, the push Is absolutely 
over, and that it has been out of all propor- 
tion costly for the Germans. With that we 
have to be content. We must wait for his- 
tory to tell us of the glorious episodes of the 
desperate battles, of the achievements of the 
cavalry which closed the breaches In the line, 
[ i66 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

and how the French 5th Army Corps — our 
brave boys of the Seine and Marne — held 
the road down the valley of the Oise to the 
beating heart of France — Paris — for the 
second time. How long? 



[ 167 ] 



XXI 

April 15, igi8 

We are droll, we humans. 

Although the battle is still going on out 
there every one here seems to have forgotten 
those panicky hours of the last week in 
March. It was that first quick retreat in the 
north which upset them all with the unspeak- 
able dread that perhaps we could not hold 
them. The moment when it became evident 
that, though the Allies had to retreat, the 
line was not smashed, every one bucked up 
— and life became just what it had been all 
these forty-two and a half months before. 
People seem even to have forgotten the 
dread of those days. 

The second phase of the battle was over 
a week ago, and, though we have lost some 
ground, the line is still an unbroken wall, and 
Germany's situation unchanged — except 
that she is a little nearer Paris. 

We've had some queer weather — most 
uncertain. It has rained, sunshined, snowed, 
sunshined and frozen. I am afraid that 
means another year without fruit, which is a 
disappointment, as the fruit trees flowered 
superbly. 

[ i68 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

The long-distance cannon continues to fire 
on Paris — the grosse Bertha, they call it. 
We hear every shot from here. The cannon 
at the front still pounds away, and during the 
nights the battle-front is often strangely 
illuminated, a dull glow, like that which I am 
sure you have often seen in the sky over a 
foundry, and not unlike that which, at times, 
hangs over Vesuvius. Now and then we see 
star rockets and different kinds of fusees. 
But I no longer go out at night to watch, 
though I cannot induce Pere and Amelie to 
sleep. The truth is that I have got so that 
the cannon do not keep me awake. Amelie 
insists that she cannot sleep, but as her room 
is on the south side of the house, I believe 
that is only because she persists in getting up 
and hanging out of the north window to see 
what is going on, thus deliberately prevent- 
ing herself from sleeping. 

I keep myself very busy. It is the only 
way. I go up to Paris whenever there is any 
need, much to Amelie's disgust. She never 
draws a long breath, she says, until I get 
back, on the theory that a bomb from that 
long-range gun will fall on the train one day, 
or on me in the street. But as the chances 
are about one in a million I '11 take that 
chance. I was in Paris three times last week 
— going up twice by the seven o'clock train, 
and coming back at night. Of course, only 
important business would have induced me 

[ 169 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

to make that effort, as it meant taking my 
coffee at half-past five, and I don't like that 
any better than I ever did. 

In spite of everything I had heard, I found 
Paris normal. It is a very great pity that 
the Germans, who are told that Paris is being 
bombarded every day, and probably suppose 
it is being gradually destroyed, cannot see 
the effects of the bombardment. I was on 
the boulevards the first day I went up, when 
a bomb fell and exploded, making so heavy 
a detonation that it seemed very near. It 
really was across the Seine. No one stopped 
walking, though every one did exactly what 
I did — pulled out a watch to see the hour. 
That was all, though it was only a short time 
after the Good Friday feat of the grosse 
Bertha, when a bomb fell on the church you 
and I know so well, and where we used to 
go in the old days, and sitting near the tomb 
of Madame de Maintenon's ribald first hus- 
band — chair-bound old Scarron — listen to 
the very service that was going on when the 
bomb fell. What with the bomb, and the 
panic that followed, there was heavy loss of 
life, and because of the number of victims, 
and the fact that many were well-known 
people, — for the Good Friday office of the 
Tenebrae is a smart religious function, — the 
accident made a good deal of noise in the 
world, and it was impossible to conceal it. 
But it is ridiculous to emphasize the fact that 
[ 170 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

the dirty Germans deliberately fired on a 
church on a Holy Day during an office, as 
the reaching of such a target was pure acci- 
dent. The emplacement of the big gun is 
fixed. It reaches a certain distance into the 
city. It can evidently be turned east and 
west, so that the menaced points seem to lie 
in an arc, reaching roughly from Montrouge 
to near the Gare de I'Est, and passing by a 
line just behind where I used to live — 
through the " Garden of Lies," I Imagine, — 
and across the Seine near the Louvre. 

Twice while I was in Paris I had to pass 
through this line, while the gun was firing, 
to go out through the fortifications. I was 
on my way to a suburban hospital, and had a 
sick woman in the motor-car. The big gun 
fired a corking shot while we were crossing 
the Seine to run up by the Luxembourg Gar- 
dens. I looked at my watch and calculated 
the distance to the Porte, but I had not the 
smallest sensation of the suspense I expected 
to have. Three hours later I came back by 
the same route, only making a slight detour 
to avoid a tree that a shot fired since I passed 
out of the gate had broken off. 

The only marked difference that I saw In 
the quarter was the silence In the Luxem- 
bourg Gardens, where the children were no 
longer playing. Apropos of the children, 
you might suppose that living in a bom- 
barded city, being In so many cases taken out 

[ 171 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

of bed and carried to abris in the night, might 
at least create a panic among them. It does 
not seem to. On the contrary many of them 
appear to think it all a lark. 

In the danger zone, of course, Paris, which 
takes great care of her children — for no- 
where are children more loved or happier 
than they are in France — has sent the 
school-children, with their teachers, into the 
country. But there are still plenty of chil- 
dren in the city. 

One day when I was in town I saw a group 
of youngsters playing and making so much 
noise that I had to stop and watch them. 
It was in a garden in a safe part of the city, 
and it took two minutes to see what they 
were playing. They were playing " Les 
Gothas^ One boy was a watcher at a " lis- 
tening post," who gave the alarm, ^'They 
come!" Another was the fireman in his 
auto, rushing along, and sounding his sirene. 
One was the gunner at his post of D. C. A. 
putting up a barrage, ''bang, bang, bang." 
A group were Boche avians making a ter- 
rible series of explosions in all parts of the 
garden. When it was over, the bogus dead 
and wounded were lying all over the place, 
and a tiny little fellow rushed about, sounding 
the "All clear," on a tin trumpet. Even 
then it was not over, for along came the 
clanging bells of the ambulances and the vic- 
tims were picked up. They did the thing 

[ 172 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

with great spirit, imitating all the noises 
admirably, with children's apt talent at 
mimicry. 

I never go to Paris but I wish that you 
were with me. Each trip Into the city has 
Its new experience. 

The railway station is one of the most In- 
teresting places in the world to-day. Our 
line carries most of the soldiers going to and 
from the front. 

At Vaires, just outside of the outer line of 
forts, is the immense Camp des Permission- 
aires. All the men coming In from the 
front on their regular eight days' home-leave 
once In four months, must stop at Vaires to 
have their papers examined, and from there 
go on to their destinations, and many of 
them stay there during their leave, for obvi- 
ous reasons. At the expiration of their 
leave, they report there to be sent back to 
their posts. The camp is immense. Line 
after line of tracks has been laid, extending 
almost as far as one can see, for the big mili- 
tary trains run right into the camp from the 
main line. Miles and miles of barracks, and 
offices for re-equippIng soldiers, stretch off 
into the distance, and there is never an hour 
of the day or night, when a train-load of 
poilus is not coming in or going out. 

As this is only a short distance down the 
line between here and Paris it is one of the 
most interesting points on my trips to town. 

[ 173 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

The big station in Paris, with its various 
Red Cross works, — the Americans have a 
very well-organized one there — and moving 
throngs, is even more interesting. It is alive 
with movement — with tragedy and comedy 
— and to-day it is a tower of Babel, with the 
American military policeman in his red 
bands and his conspicuous U. S. A. always in 
evidence. 

I never can resist lingering a minute to see 
the soldiers leaving the station. There are 
always crowds of women and children wait- 
ing at the barriers — for the poihis have 
their especial entrance and exit — and a 
throng always presses round the gate through 
which they must pass, not only those who 
have come expecting — usually in vain — to 
meet their own, — but the curious who have 
just come to see the boys from the front. 
The looker after material — artistic, realis- 
tic, or otherwise, — lovers of the grotesque, 
hunters after the picturesque, lovers of laugh- 
ter, morbid seekers after tragedy, will find it 
all there, as well as, now and then, something 
of the beautiful, and occasionally a bit of the 
heroic. But the seeker after what is ordi- 
narily known as "scenes" will lose his time. 
France may have once been what we used 
to call her, *' hysterical." She is certainly 
not even emotional to-day, so far as I can 
see. 

Sometimes I think that the big station is 

[ 174 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

even more picturesque on the side where the 
poilus are waiting to go back. At those 
times the big courtyard in front is packed 
with them. When they are coming in from 
the front, they simply seem to rush through, 
taking little notice of the crowd so interested 
in them and providing the atmosphere invol- 
untarily. But when they are going back to 
the front it is a different matter. 

Do you find that puzzling? Well, the 
poilus arriving on home-leave are tired, often 
disgusted, or indifferent. *' Home-leave" 
looks like Heaven to them. But they go 
back gaily. The truth is, as a rule, they are 
glad to go back. It is not that they are not 
tired of the war. They are. Every one is, 
— except our boys, who are nearly four years 
behind the game. It has lasted too long for 
the poilu to have anything but dogged toler- 
ance for it. When the regular time arrives 
for him to "come out" he welcomes it, but 
in the three and more years that he has been 
cut off from normal life he has become the 
inhabitant of another world. He speaks an- 
other language — a specialized tongue, — 
and, in spite of everything, he almost invari- 
ably gets homesick on leave. 

I suspected this, little by little, as I watched 
the men coming in from the front — they are 
no longer boisterous, — and then watched 
them go singing back. So one day I said to 
Petit Louis, a boy in our commune, a gunner, 

[ I7S ] 



The Peak of the Load 

who always comes to pay his respects to me 
when he arrives on leave, and to say " good- 
bye " when " going in " again. 

"Well, Louis, how is your soixante- 
quinzef 

" Fine, the darling," he laughed. 

Then I said that I supposed he was glad 
to be at home. 

He puckered up his brows, shrugged his 
shoulders, made one of his queer little ges- 
tures with his hands, and said : 

"Well, I don't know. Sure, I am glad to 
see the woman and the kids, and to sleep one 
night or so in a bed, — but — I don't know 
why it is, I get bored with it in a day or two. 
I am used to a different kind of life. I miss 
my chums. I miss knowing exactly what to do 
— what I Ve got to do whether I want to or 
not. So you see, after two days of walking 
about, talking with people who seem to un- 
derstand just nothing at all about what is 
going on out there, I am bored. I miss being 
dead tired at night. I miss the noise. After 
two or three days I count the hours until I 
can get back." 

I can understand that. It made me think 
of what a man said to me in Paris in the early 
days of the war. 

" My father used to go, once a year, to sit 
over a dinner with his comrades of the regi- 
ment in '70. My sons will cherish their com- 
rades and live over with them this great war. 

[ 176 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

Men of my generation — we have nothing 
to talk about." 

It was not worth while to remind him that 
after this is over the men who will be heard 
talking loudest will be those who have never 
seen a trench or fired a gun. Here in our 
little commune the people who can tell you 
the wildest tales of the days of the invasion 
are those who ran away. If anyone were to 
come here to-day, in a spirit of research, it 
would not be the half dozen of us who actu- 
ally stayed here in September, 19 14, who 
would tell hair-raising tales. It would be the 
others. The stories have rolled up like the 
famous snowball. It has opened my eyes in 
a sense about the difficulties of writing 
history. 

One of the striking features about this 
war is that the active soldiers almost never 
talk with the civilians about the war. In a 
sense, it is forbidden, but the reason goes 
deeper than that. The soldier and the civil- 
ian seem to-day to speak a different lan- 
guage. It almost seems as if a dark curtain 
hung between the realities of life " out 
there," and the life into which the soldier 
enters en repos. 

Whenever they are talkative, it is of some- 
thing rather spiritual than material. The 
last time I went up to Paris I had an experi- 
ence of that sort. I was settled in my com- 
partment — alone. The train was about to 

[ 177 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

start when the door was yanked open. A 
tall, middle-aged officer brought up his hand 
to salute, flung his bag in, entered after it, 
banged the door, and sat down just as the 
train moved. He cast a keen glance at me, 
then unbuckled his belt and made himself 
comfortable. The first time he caught my 
eyes he leaned over, and said: 

'' I imagine that you are the American 
lady who lived up on the hill at Huiry ? " 

I owned up. 

" I have heard of you," he said. " I have 
a friend who was quartered in your house." 

Then he settled down to chat. He seemed 
to need it, which is unusual. He appeared 
to be about forty-five, — a lieutenant. He 
asked all sorts of things about the States — 
how long it would take their army to get 
ready? What sort of soldiers did I think 
they would make? How many did I think 
were over? And so forth. 

I did my best, but I could not tell him how 
many were over, and we would not be really 
ready until the army was here. The only 
thing of which I could actually assure him 
was that the boys from the States would, 
with a little experience, make as fine soldiers 
as the war has yet seen. On that point I was 
absolutely sure, and I gave it to him, with 
emphasis, that, in my opinion, old Kaiser 
Bill would have no greater disillusion in the 
war than the United States v/ould furnish 

[ 178 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

him, in proving to him that it did not take a 
lifetime of drilling to create a patriotic army, 
and that a patriotic army was better than a 
professional one. 

With a sigh of content he leaned back, and 
I realized again how great a factor in the 
morale of the French the cominor over of the 
boys from the States was. After a short 
silence he smiled at me, and said: 

"Ridiculous — a war. You see. In the 
days before this came I was what one calls, 
with considerable contempt now, ' an intel- 
lectual.' I did not believe in force. I be- 
lieved in the spiritual development of the 
individual. But in days of peace does any 
man know what is really in him ? I 've given 
my only son," and he touched the black band 
on his sleeve. " Thank God his mother went 
first. I Ve done my duty as best I could," 
and he touched the red ribbon on his breast, 
with the barred one of military medals be- 
side it. " But I often wonder if all educated 
men have to make the same struggle that I 
do. Often, when the moment comes to ' go 
over ' I wonder what my men would think if 
I were to cry out, ' Fire in the air ! It is 
nobler to be killed than to kill.' " He looked 
out of the window a moment before he 
laughed and added, "Absurd, Isn't it? Be- 
cause I know that a war of defence and for 
principle, and for the hopes of the future, is 
a holy war." 

[ 179 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

Here the train began to slow down. 

"Helloa! Vaires already? I hope that 
I have not bored you?" And as he buckled 
his belt, and picked up his bag, he added, 
"It is so rarely that I talk to a woman — 
I 've no family — that I rather lose my head. 
A thousand excuses. Good-bye." xA.nd we 
shook hands like old friends. 

I watched him as he walked rapidly away. 
A lieutenant at forty-five ! That meant that 
he was a volunteer. 

I have been sitting here, off and on, all day, 
writing this. That shows my need of com- 
munion in these trying days, when we are 
asking ourselves where the next attack is to 
be, and hoping that it will not take us by 
surprise. 

I smile when I remember that in the first 
hard days of the first week in March I tried 
to comfort the people about me by saying: 
"Courage! This is the beginning of the 
final act." So it is, I suppose. But there are 
to be more scenes in it than I thought then. 
They are still strong, those Huns. 

I do hope that when I write so frankly of 
the emotions of each day here you do not get 
the impression that anyone has lost faith in 
the final issue. I don't thinly they have. It 
is only that they are not so sure as they were 
up to the opening of this offensive that this 
special part of France may not have to be 
[ i8o ] 



The Peak of the Load 

sacrificed as so many places have been. If 
it is — well, never mind. In our hearts, even 
trembling, we instinctively believe in a sec- 
ond miracle. Yet why should we? 



[ i8i ] 



XXII 

May 24, igi8 

We are still sitting as tight as we can, 
waiting for the next offensive move, which 
has held off longer than was anticipated. 
The absolute uncertainty as to the point in 
the line now menaced, and the inevitable 
nervousness which comes from waiting every 
night for an aerial attack, and listening all 
day for the big cannon to begin firing on 
Paris, makes each hour of the twenty-four a 
bit trying. Of course the last of the three 
grosse Berthas was destroyed by the aviators 
on the 3rd. But we know that it will not 
stay out of action forever. 

I have kept busy planting, cleaning house, 
arranging all sorts of extra curtains, but, 
luckily the nights are getting very short and 
the Gotha raids do not force me to be her- 
metically sealed for long at a time. It is 
hardly dark at half-past nine, and it begins 
to get light before four. I have already 
learned to go about in my shuttered house in 
the dark when an alerte gets me out of bed, 
though there is no need. But an odd sensa- 
tion comes over me during an attack, espe- 
cially as the batteries for the defence sur- 

[ 182 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

round us now in a semicircle — there are five 
of them. When they all begin to fire, I feel 
as if my little house were the only visible 
thing in the landscape, and as though, if I lit 
up, even behind shutters and curtains, I 
should be seen. If that is not the nth power 
of vanity, I don't know what to name it. 

I expect you will get tired of hearing 
about air raids, but really, if I do not tell 
you about them I should be at a loss to know 
of what I could write to you. They are of 
almost nightly occurrence, and each one is 
different. We had a double one last night, 
— or one In two acts — covering four hours 
and a half, with an entr'acte of three quar- 
ters of an hour. 

It was about eleven o'clock. I was read- 
ing quietly when I heard the guns from the 
fort. I intended to stay comfortably in bed. 
It had been understood between Amelie and 
me that, under no circumstances, was she to 
come to me. In the first place, it is forbid- 
den by orders, and in the second, now that 
the barrage surrounds us, there is danger 
from spent shot from the guns of the forts. 
But at the end of half an hour I could not 
resist going out to try to see what was hap- 
pening. I had hardly got into the garden 
before the guns ceased firing, and I went 
back to bed. It was only a little over an 
hour later, when boom went the cannon 
again, and the raid lasted until nearly day- 

[ 183 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

light. This time I went out at once. It is 
impossible to resist the impulse. In spite of 
all the regulations there was a group in the 
road above my house, at a point where they 
can look right over the fort at Chelles into 
the horizon line over Paris, and from which 
point they can see and locate each search- 
light and can often see the explosion of the 
shells. I suppose they will continue to do 
this until a bit of spent shrapnel hits some 
one in the head, and demonstrates to them 
that it is not safe. 

It made a rather long night, but when the 
last gun fired, just before daybreak, I was 
still sitting on the lawn. All through the 
night I had heard the military trains on the 
railroad rushing along the valley, and, when 
the dim coming of day enabled me to see 
them, I noticed that a scouting engine pre- 
ceded each train, as in the early days of the 
mobilization. So I was not surprised a few 
hours later to learn that a bomb had fallen 
within fifty yards of the tunnel at Charlifert. 

While I was still sitting there, Amelie 
joined me. She was all dressed, and I knew 
that she had not been in bed at all. 

It was not quite four o'clock. A beautiful 
day was breaking. The cuckoo was talking. 
A blackbird began to sing. Then the spar- 
rows and the swallows yawned and chirped, 
and a thrush piped up. Overhead, the 
avians de chasse were still scouting. Out 

[ 184 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

at the big camp, lying along miles of the 
fields, across the Marne, fiechettes, thin 
white lines of light, mounted like silver 
arrows straight into the air at regular inter- 
vals, to guide the aviators back to their 
landing field. Now and then, a coloured 
light in the air announced a flyer ready to 
descend, then, in a moment, the big lights on 
the field would flare up, and in the coming 
daylight we would see a machine circling 
down. We sat there, until, at half-past four, 
the last homing avion was in. It was no use 
to go to bed at that hour, so, as the days are 
hot, I weeded and watered the garden, set 
out a few begonias which Amelie went to 
Meaux for yesterday, and some of the seed- 
lings — zinnias, soucis, and old-fashioned 
balsam. I promise myself to go to bed with 
the chickens to-night to make up. 

I note that you send your love to Khaki 
and Dick. I have given your message to the 
Grand Due, but Dick is very unpopular at 
this moment, and civilities are suspended be- 
tween us. 

I think I told you that Dick had got so 
that he never barked at a poiluf The army 
might come and carry off the house, and me 
in it, he would consider it all right. Like 
the Grande Diichesse he loves the military. 
Well, lately, life has been very dull for him. 
Since he cannot run free without a muzzle, 
his one idea is to escape, and go in search of 

[ 185 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

his adored poilus, since they don't just now 
come to see him. I expect they let him lick 
out their gamelles. It saves washing them. 
Anyway, last week there was a regiment at 
Quincy. Dick disappeared. He was gone 
for nearly a week. I kept hearing of him, 
but the regiment had been gone nearly forty- 
eight hours before he reappeared. Amelie 
opened the door for him. He made a dash 
upstairs and tried to jump on the bed to give 
me an affectionate morning greeting, as he 
is allowed to do when he is good. I repulsed 
him severely, and tried to have an explana- 
tion with him. I demanded, at least, to 
know where he had been since the regiment 
departed. He was very reticent. He looked 
at me, and scratched his head behind his ear 
in a very knowing manner — had brought a 
military flea with him, I suppose, — and ex- 
pected that to satisfy me. It distinctly did 
not. So he was sent down to his kennel and 
chained. I hope he knew why. Still, as he 
had evidently had a good time, he probably 
felt that it was worth while being chained up 
for a day. 

However, the explanation I could not get 
from him followed almost at once. He 
had evidently waited about in Quincy hoping 
some more soldiers might arrive, and In the 
waiting time he had been overcome by 
hunger, and gone marketing for himself — 
on tick, — and his bills followed him home. 
[ i86 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

He had eaten a franc-twenty-five centimes' 
worth of sausage at the charciiterie. He had 
spoiled a pound of cheese at the cremerie. 
He had decamped with a bone worth fifty 
centimes at the butcher's, which would have 
been allowed him if he had not returned and 
helped himself to a costly chop — one franc- 
fifty. On the morning of the third day, — 
no regiment arriving, — he evidently decided 
that life was too difficult, and that he had 
better return to his regular boarding-house, 
where, at least, meals were certain, and wait 
until more soldiers and more gamelles ar- 
rived. I paid the bills of the prodigal, of 
course, but I did not kill any fatted calf for 
him. Not that he minded that, for, to tell 
you the truth, he rendered up some of the 
stolen goods soon after his return, and then 
rolled himself up to sleep it off. 

While I am speaking about Dick, I must 
tell you another amusing thing. He has dis- 
covered the aeroplanes. For a long time, 
whenever a machine flew low, as they often 
do, he has rushed out and barked furiously 
all over the place. Just for fun, one day, I 
held him by his collar and tried to make him 
look in the right direction. I never suc- 
ceeded. He looked everywhere but at the 
proper place over his head. But one day, 
standing with Amelle and me In the garden 
while a big triplane was passing, he discov- 
ered it himself. He began barking, running 

[ 187 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

madly after It, and trying to jump the hedge. 
Since then, he has learned where to look 
when he hears them, and he always runs the 
length of the garden, eyes in the air, head 
erect, yelping and jumping. Of course, he 
thinks it is a big bird, though he never barks 
at birds. But birds don't make such a racket. 

I have seen some wonderful flights of 
avions lately — some twenty in battle forma- 
tion. It is a wonderful sight here where 
the sky space is so extensive. One of the 
prettiest flights the other day was so high 
that, if it had not been for the noise the 
moteurs made, I should not have detected 
them at all, — they looked so tiny in the blue 
depth of that vast expanse — no larger than 
the swallow flying under them, thousands 
and thousands of feet below. 

Kind of you to congratulate me on drop- 
ping out of the political note. As for that, 
I was stirred when Caillaux went to live at 
La Sante, and I shall get excited again when 
he — goes on. For all the smaller men who 
are moving out of the line of vision I am 
little concerned so that they go and en route 
close the pincers on the chief. Political trials 
are delicate affairs in the democratic world 
In which a man is said to have a right to his 
opinions, but In times of war there are things 
more Important than opinions. The dis- 
cipline to which an army defending the coun- 
try must submit, and failure to do which 
[ i88 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

incurs the penalty of death for the soldier, 
surely applies in some way to civilians. Un- 
til it is demonstrated that it does, there can 
be no consolations for the terrible affair of 
last May, or for the tragedy of Coeuvres. 
That is all. 



[ 189 ] 



XXIII 

May 30, igi8 

It has been a very trying week. Indeed, 
as I look back to the long months of war, I 
realize that it was only when, on the last day 
of January, Germany began the effort of 
which this week is only one phase, that we 
really began to appreciate the frightfulness 
of her endeavour. Since that day, no one 
within hearing of the front has had a day 
of tranquillity, and no one in France an hour 
free of anxiety. For that matter, no one in 
the world, capable of understanding or sym- 
pathy, can have been calm. But it is surely 
a different thing to read about these days 
than to take part in them. I cannot write 
you about the life here in detail, because, as 
I have already assured you, things are all 
changed by the time you read the letters, and 
you know long before you get them what 
turn affairs have taken. And then, there is 
always the censor. 

There has hardly been a night since I 
wrote you last without an air raid, and on 
the night of the day I last wrote you, we were 
showered with spent shrapnel. It fell on the 
roofs at Voisins and I am treasuring for you, 
[ 190 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

as a personal souvenir of me and the war, a 
large jagged bit which struck the shutter of 
my bedroom window and bounded on to the 
terrace. 

On the day before the long-awaited offen- 
sive began on our front, on the historic 
Chemin des Dames, everything was quiet 
here. It was a Sunday. We had had five air 
raids in about eight days. The weather had 
been very hot, and I had felt a bit shaky. 
But on Saturday, that was the twenty-fifth, I 
had a telegram from Paris telling me that a 
friend was leaving for Bordeaux on Mon- 
day, and, as she could not get a saiif conduit 
to come to me, begged me to come up to 
town, if only for an hour. So I was up at 
five, and at six Pere was driving me down to 
the station to take the seven o'clock train. 
We always have to allow plenty of time for 
fear of being delayed on the road by military 
camions. 

It was a lovely morning, full of sunshine, 
but with the fresh breeze blowing from the 
north-east still, as it has for weeks. As we 
turned from the Chemin Madame into the 
route nationale, we found ourselves face to 
face with a procession of artillery camions 
extending as far as we could see in the direc- 
tion of Meaux, and down the hill to Coullly, 
where, one after another, they continued to 
come round the curve from St. Germain dur- 
ing our entire descent to the station. The 

[ 191 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

camions had cannon of all calibres mounted, 
each followed by a load of gunners, and 
every little way came ammunition-trucks 
and rolling kitchens. Every cannon's nose, 
as it stuck its carefully capped muzzle be- 
tween the heads of the chauffeur and mechani- 
cian was wreathed with flowers, and every 
camion carried a huge bunch of red peo- 
nies or roses, with daisies and some blue 
field flowers — always making the French 
colours. The gunners all had clean, smiling, 
Sunday faces, but, as Ninette ambled down 
the hill in the cloud of dust made by the 
camions groaning and rumbling up it, I felt 
that this tremendous movement of artillery 
must be the prelude to the offensive, and that 
the movement just here must mean that it 
was the line from Soissons to Reims which 
was threatened. I said nothing to Pere. I 
was coming back in the middle of the after- 
noon. 

I made an easy trip to Paris. Although 
it was Sunday, there was no crowd. Nor 
was there any unusual movement of troops 
on the line. I found the streets more ani- 
mated than usual. It was three weeks since 
the long-range gun, which had so long bom- 
barded the city, had been silenced. It looked 
as if a great many people who had left Paris 
during the March offensive had returned. 
The animation in the streets was not that of 
even a year ago, but it was anything but a 
[ 192 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

dead city or a sad city to me. So I forgot all 
about my impression of the morning, until, 
as I was driving back by the road from 
Esbly, in the middle of the afternoon, the 
picture suddenly returned to me, and I in- 
stinctively turned to look across the Marne, 
and listened for the guns. Not a sound. 
Perhaps I was mistaken, I thought. 

We had a peaceful night. I went out 
early the next morning. All was silent. But 
while I was having my coffee there was one 
heavy shot. I jumped. It was once more 
that big gun firing on Paris. There was no 
doubt in my mind — that was the accompani- 
ment, or the prelude, to the new battle. But 
still we heard no sound of artillery in the 
direction of the front. The only explanation 
seemed to us was that the attack was, after 
all, not here but on a part of the line farther 
north — perhaps again in Picardy where the 
attack of March had carried the Germans 
nearer the sea and nearer still to the railroad 
communication so important to the British. 
So you can imagine our surprise when the 
news came that the attack, which had begun 
at three o'clock in the morning, was against 
the line in front of us from Montdidier in 
the west, with Compiegne and the route to 
Paris down the Oise valley, Chateau Thierry 
and the route down the Marne, Reims and 
Chalons, as objectives. 

The big gun, w^iich had begun to bombard 

[ 193 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

Paris at half-past six in the morning was still 
firing at half-past six at night, and at half- 
past ten at night there was an air raid which 
lasted about an hour and a quarter. 

With all one's pluck held tight in both 
hands, and our morale builded up on the 
same principles that are handed out to the 
soldiers, you must agree that there is some- 
thing appalling in this determined, reckless 
exhibition of brute force. Even although I 
am not a bit sentimental about this, I must 
remark that it seems to be stupid. The 
demonstration does not seriously alarm any- 
one — it surely demoralizes no one. It must 
be pretty costly. Besides that, the amount of 
harm it does is infinitesimal in comparison 
to the effort. One life sacrificed in that way 
is one too many, but more lives are lost 
almost any day by the ordinary accidents of 
life than by this superman effort of frightful- 
ness. As for the air raids — they get less 
and less effective, as the air defence is elab- 
orated by actual experience. 

Trying as the week has been, it has been 
absolutely different from that of the big 
battle of March. We have hardly heard a 
gun. Dead silence has reigned here, and 
that silence has been terribly trying. We 
have known that it was largely an infantry 
battle, and all the time the wind has blown 
steadily from the north-east — what Amelie 
calls " le vent des Boches,^^ because it is a 

[' 194 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

wind which brings their gas over. But that 
is the prevailing wind here at this season, 
and the Germans have made a great study 
of meteorology, as a military science. In 
the drive towards Amiens in March, the 
heavy guns played a big part, and for days 
and nights the earth shook with the artillery 
play even as far south as this. To-day, the 
fourth of this battle, the silence is almost 
terrifying. I keep saying to myself, " Will 
the heavy artillery never get to work?'* 

We have lost Craonne, and the Chemin 
des Dames, and how many a tragic hilltop? 
Day after day we trace the battle-line as well 
as we can, and, as it approaches us, the only 
consolation is that though it bends and curves 
and stretches, it does not break. The Ger- 
mans have again crossed the Aisne and the 
Vesle, and were last night at Fismes, which 
the English retook in October, 19 14, some- 
thing like twenty miles nearer to us. Reims 
is holding out superbly. But for that matter, 
with its tremendous underground structures, 
it is practically impregnable. I don't believe 
it can be taken except by a siege, but the 
Germans are encircling it and rapidly ap- 
proaching Chateau-Thierry, which threatens 
our railroad communications. 

It was only last week that I had a letter 
from you in which you said: "Of course 
they will attack again. They must or own 
themselves defeated. But they will not be 

[ 195 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

so strong." Hm! They were 650,000 
against 80,000 when this battle began. Of 
course, that was before our reserves were 
brought up. I sit trembling for fear of a 
panic again. I cannot blame these poor 
people. They are as loyal as possible, but 
our roads are again crowded with refugees 
flying from the front. It is a horrid sight. 

Wednesday a man rested at my gate. He 
had been obliged to leave his farm when 
the surprise attack forced the army back so 
quickly Sunday that civilians had no time to 
save anything but their lives. He had left 
his big modern reaping machines — they had 
to be destroyed to keep them from falling 
into German hands. He had left two thou- 
sand pounds of beans, requisitioned by the 
army, — there was no time to move them, 
and they were not paid for — burned that 
the enemy might not get them. And he is 
only one of thousands, and it is inevitable 
that, after the first excitement, must come 
the sense of personal loss. I could under- 
stand that, for this is the second time he 
had been driven out. 

It was hard to find just the right thing to 
say — especially as I was safe — so far. No 
personal sacrifice has been asked of me. So 
I said finally: "Don't be discouraged yet. 
All these things will be arranged, and your 
children will have a better world to live in. 
Besides, the American boys are coming over 

[ 196 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

as fast as they can get here. There are 
nearly a million here now, I should think." 

He shook his head. "Too late," he re- 
plied. " What are a million against the three 
millions the Huns have brought from 
Russia?" 

Well, there you are, and can you blame 
him? 

It was Wednesday that things began to 
look serious here. On that day the scenes 
of 1 9 14 began to repeat themselves. The 
better class began to fly. The humbler 
farmers and peasants began to hide their 
belongings. Caves and subterranean pas- 
sages were again filled with furniture, bed- 
ding and household treasures, even clothing. 
Some of the richer farmers began to drive 
their cattle south, and some people even 
wheeled their possessions in wheelbarrows 
to the quarries at Mareull, where work had 
stopped, owing to the bombs that have fallen 
there. 

It was in vain that I argued that there 
was no Immedlaite danger; that we should 
get warning if it were necessary to go; that 
the roads were sufficiently blocked already 
by those who had been driven out, and by 
the army, without our adding further to the 
confusion. The peasants and the farmers 
would listen, — if you set them the example, 
you can count on them, but not so well on 
those who have a place to go to, and money 

[ 197 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

in their pockets to get there. Besides, I 
really was " talking through my hat," and 
I thought to myself, " If I am a bad prophet 
they may mob me, and serve me right for 
interfering." 

In the meantime Amelie sat tight. I had 
her fixed with my eye, — and she had not 
forgotten 19 14. 

Thursday — that was yesterday — was the 
hardest day. All night the confusion on the 
road was terrible. Sleep was impossible. 
On that day, while every one was rushing 
about hiding things — too busy to do any 
work in the fields — a group of refugees 
arrived here. As a rule, we, who are off 
the main road, see them at Quincy and 
Voisins, and Couilly, and go out to help 
them. But just before sunset yesterday one 
of the children of the hamlet came running 
to the gate with the news that a group of 
emigres were crossing the hilltop by the 
Chemin Madame. Of course if they were 
taking that road, they were coming here. 
It leads nowhere else. The first impulse of 
every one seemed to be to hang back. Refu- 
gees here, where every one was so nervous, 
seemed to them the last straw — especially 
at the moment when they felt pretty sure that 
another day or two might see them all refu- 
gees themselves. But they are children, 
these simple people. So when I started hur- 
riedly up the road, without a word, to meet 

[ 198 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

them, they all followed, as I knew they 
would. I thought of how It must feel to be 
driven out of one's home, and to enter, at 
sundown of a hot day, into a little hamlet 
like this, not knowing what kind of a recep- 
tion awaited one — was it to be a welcome, 
or only curious looks from Indifferent eyes? 

As I reached the corner I met coming 
across the hill a procession of five loaded 
farm wagons, drawn by big sturdy farm 
horses. Beside the train marched a middle- 
aged man and half a dozen boys. In the 
wagons rode the women and children, and by 
them ran a couple of dogs. The man walk- 
ing at the head of the group, with a heavy 
stick In his hand, looked about fifty, and 
was apparently the leader. When I smiled 
him a welcome, he took off his hat, and then 
we shook hands ceremoniously, and then the 
Hulry-Ites all followed suit. For a moment 
I thought It was going to be a real function, 
and I was about to tell him that I was not 
the Mayor of Hulry, but a foreigner, when 
I was spared the trouble. He spotted me 
at once, and said: ^''Vous etes Americaine, 
n^est-ce pasf' So much for my accent. He 
explained that he knew the accent. He had 
left a lot of our boys where he had come 
from, — north of Compiegne. 

When I asked him what we could do to 
make the party comfortable, he explained 
that he had been told that there was room 

[ 199 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

on the hill to shelter his horses for the night, 
and that that was all they needed. If we 
could give the old grandmother and her little 
grandchild a bed, the rest would camp, and 
then he added : " We don't want to put any 
one out. We can pay for everything. But 
the horses must rest for one night, as we 
have been on the road since sunrise yes- 
terday." 

You should have seen how quickly it was 
arranged. I took in the grandmother — she 
was not as old as I am, by the way — and 
the little child, whose father had been killed, 
and whose mother is a nurse in a hospital in 
Paris, and a pretty blonde girl, who proved 
to be the aunt, and inside half an hour the 
horses were stabled, the wagons under cover, 
and beds ready for every one, and a kitchen 
found in the house across the road from me, 
which was empty. 

You can get some idea of what these 
people are like when I tell you in a jiffy the 
women turned up the skirts of their best 
dresses, got out their big aprons, and went 
to work to get their dinner. They had every- 
thing with them — chickens, rabbits, vege- 
tables, tinned things, bread, and even char- 
coal. A kind welcome had made them cheer- 
ful, and before nine o'clock they were all 
established at an improvised table on the 
roadside, eating, chatting and laughing. It 
was a sight that did us all good. 
[ 200 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

It was not much after ten when the women 
went to bed, leaving the men to clear up and 
re-pack. It was a family of neighbours — 
rich shop keepers, hotel keepers, and their 
farm hands, and farmers. One man told 
me that he alone had left fifty thousand 
francs' worth of materials behind him, and 
his only prayer was that the Allies had been 
able to take it or destroy it. There was no 
sign of class distinction. They were all one 
family, and had all such pretty manners. 
The baby — about three — came to offer her 
little hand when she was put to bed, and 
lisp her '' Bon soir, Madame, et bonne nuit^^^ 
and one after another of the group came 
into the garden to say good-night. 

The elderly man remarked that it would 
be pleasant to sleep out of the sound of the 
guns. I had to laugh, as I replied : 

" Well, I am sorry that we cannot promise 
you that. We are just in front of the guns 
of the outer forts of Paris, and we get a 
Gotha visit almost every night." 

But that idea did not disturb them. They 
had been accustomed to so much worse. And 
sure enough, we had hardly got into bed, 
when, at about twenty minutes past eleven, 
the guns began to fire from the forts, and 
for an hour and a quarter the noise was 
infernal. 

I was up early this morning, but, as I 
wanted to keep the house quiet, in order that 

[ 201 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

my tired guests might sleep, I came upstairs 
to write to you. The news is bad — the 
Germans are in Soissons again, and the Allied 
army is still retreating south and west. Poor 
Soissons ! This makes the third time its 
people have had to get out. I remember so 
well that day in the end of August — the 
twenty-ninth, I think — in 19 14, when the 
British lost it the first time. But a fortnight 
later people were returning, though they did 
not stay long, as the following January the 
Germans began bombarding it, and it was 
not until March, 1917, that the town was 
again safe for civilians, and now, for the 
third time, these poor people are wanderers 
again. 

Well, my guests are beginning to move 
about. Amelie is calling me to my coffee, 
and I will finish this later. 

Later 

All sorts of things have happened since I 
went down to breakfast. I have only time 
to add a few words to this. News has come 
that the railroad is cut — for civilians — at 
Meaux. There is no certainty that even that 
communication with Paris will not at any 
moment become impossible. I am leaving 
for Paris — only for twenty-four hours — at 
five o'clock. 

I will write to explain from there. In the 
meantime there is no need for you to worry 
[ 202 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

yet. In case of any change in my plans I 
shall cable so that you will know where I am. 
I shall time the cable to reach you before 
this letter does so that you will not be left 
in any uncertainty. In case you have received 
no word by wire when this reaches you, you 
are to understand that I am back here, and 
all is well. 



[ 203 ] 



XXIV 

5 Filla Victor Hugo, Paris, June i, igi8 

Well, here we are, in practically the same 
situation as on that memorable September 
day in 19 14, when Amelie and I made our 
rush to Paris, to return the same night and 
find the British army at the gate, at the end 
of that tragic two weeks' retreat from Mons. 

This is what happened. 

The cordial welcome that my neighbours 
gave the refugees who arrived Thursday 
on the hilltop braced them up and consoled 
them at the end of their two days' pilgrim- 
age in the heat and dust, and their calm and 
courage braced us all up. But alas ! the bad 
news of Friday morning spoiled all that. 
When I went into the garden after my coffee, 
I found them in the road at the gate, with 
their heads over a newspaper examining a 
map of the front. I was not especially sur- 
prised when the leader came into the garden 
a little later, and said: 

"Well, Madame, although you were all 
so kind as to urge us last night to rest here 
to-day and not go on until to-morrow, we 
have decided that it is hardly wise. We are 
leaving at once, and making for Melun. The 
[ 204 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

roads are crowded now, and it seems to us 
most unsafe here. We hope to reach Melun 
during the night." 

Two hours later they were gone. 

Not long after, while I was sitting in the 
garden, listening to the confused noises from 
the moving trains of refugees on the road, 
and trying to make up my mind calmly what 
it was wisest to do, Amelie came out, and 
began to argue the matter with me. To my 
surprise I found that her mind was fixed on 
having me go to Paris at least, and wait 
there for the turn of the tide — for turn it 
must. I don't really know why it must, but 
I feel that it will. All her arguments did 
not seem sound, but some of them were wise 
enough. 

She argued that every one had gone but 
the farmers and peasants; that the situation 
was different from that of 19 14; that then 
I belonged to the most powerful of the neu- 
tral countries, whereas to-day I belonged to 
the most hated of Germany's enemies; that 
even if we were not invaded we risked being 
bombarded; that in case of a bombardment 
they could all live in the subterranean pas- 
sages, and not mind it too much, but that it 
would be unnecessarily uncomfortable for 
me; that I could still get to Paris with a 
trunk, but in case of a hurried evacuation 
later I would have to go without clothes — 
and finally, as a crowning argument, she said, 

[ 205 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

**We all want you to go, and we shall feel 
less anxious when you are in a safer place." 

I heard her out, but I was doing some 
pretty tall thinking. One thing was certain 
— I had to have money. Was n't history re- 
peating itself? It was already taking three 
and sometimes four days to get a letter into 
Paris, and almost as many to get one out. 
That meant that it would take nearly a week 
to get money by mail, and communications 
might be cut at any minute. Besides, Amelie 
was quite right on one point, — it might be 
prudent for me to have a trunk in Paris, so 
that, in case we were ordered out, I could 
at least find clean clothes at the end of my 
voyage. 

Finally I cut the argument short. 

"All right, Amelie," I said. " I '11 go up 
to Paris. But I shall come right back as soon 
as I get some money, see how things really 
are in Paris, and leave my trunk." 

" Good," said Amelie, jumping up. "Pack 
the trunk at once. There is a train at five. 
I '11 harness in an hour. That will give you 
time enough, and we must allow for the 
crowd on the road." 

I protested that the next morning would 
do, but she insisted that it was possible that 
the next morning I might not be able to get 
away. I didn't believe it, but, in the end, I 
took the five o'clock train — that was day 
[ 206 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

before yesterday, the day on which I last 
wrote to you. 

We started away silently, except that I 
assured every one who came out to say good 
bye to me that there was no good bye, as I 
was coming back, surely no later than Mon- 
day. But as we drove across the Chemin 
Madame I was surprised to find that Amelie 
was crying, a thing she rarely does. When I 
leaned forward to smile into her face she 
quite broke down. 

" You must not try to come back. None 
of us want you to. It is too dangerous. 
After this is all over we can find one another 
again. We will do all that we can to save 
your house and all your things." 

" Nonsense," I replied, " of course I am 
coming back! You are to go to Couilly to 
fetch me at two o'clock on Sunday, and, in 
case I am not there, at the same hour Mon- 
day, when I shall surely be there. In the 
meantime, if I can telegraph, I will. Do you 
understand?" 

" I understand that you are coming if you 
can get back^ 

" Fudge," I replied, but I knew that I was 
taking that chance, so I hurriedly gave her 
certain instructions in case our hill was evac- 
uated; emptied what money I had on me into 
her lap; carefully wrote out a couple of 
addresses, in and out of Paris, where she 

[ 207 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

could reach me; arranged what was to be 
done about all the beasties in case worse 
came to worst, and the one consolation I felt 
was that in case Amelie was right and I 
wrong about the situation I could certainly 
serve them better by going than staying. If 
a bombardment drove them down into the 
caves I should be an embarrassment to them. 
If military orders drove them into the roads, 
why there were a horse and donkey and two 
covered wagons, and again they would be 
more at ease without me, while outside the 
zone I could help them better than inside, 
and prepare a refuge for them. 

But as I stood on the steps at the station 
watching Amelie drive away I knew that 
she was still crying — her mind made up 
for the worst I simply refused to consider 
that it could happen. I was not gay. Who 
could be ? You never saw such a sight as the 
gare was. The refugees who had arrived 
thus far on foot, with their pitiful bags and 
parcels, were being taken on by the rail- 
road. Hundreds of women and children 
from Couilly and St. Germain and Quincy 
were flying, taking beds and all sorts of 
boxes and bundles with them. It was 19 14 
all over again, only a hundred times sadder. 

At Esbly, where we changed cars, it was 
even worse. 

The train from Meaux was over an hour 
and a half late. The platform was piled 
[ 208 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

with boxes and bundles, trunks and baby-car- 
riages loaded with parcels, baskets and 
rolled-up bedding. The crowd was as sad- 
looking as the baggage — women leading 
children and dogs, carrying bundles of all 
sorts, and string-bags in which shoes and 
bread were conspicuous. There were birds 
in cages, and cats crying in baskets. The 
sight did not tend to make anyone gay. 

It was a strangely silent crowd that stood 
during that hour and a half of weary wait- 
ing while train after train of rolling stock 
from up the line was hurried towards Paris, 
and train after train of military material was 
rushed through to Meaux. When the train, 
which should have come at twenty minutes 
to six, finally pulled in at almost half-past 
seven it seemed to me that I was back at that 
day in 19 14, — over forty-five months ago. 

If the trip to town had not had some en- 
couraging moments I am afraid that I might 
have arrived in Paris in a mood not far re- 
moved from that in which I had left Amelia 
at Huiry. 

The crowd in the packed compartment, in 
which I found a place, was interesting. 
There was a family from Nancy, which had 
been stopping at Meaux, there was an in- 
firmiere from the big military hospital, Val 
de Grace, and people flying from Meaux, 
and the principal topic of conversation was, 
quite naturally, the "boys from the States." 

[ 209 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

The greatest anxiety of every one but the 
nurse was that the delay of the train would 
force them to remain over night in bom- 
barded Paris. 

We should have been in Paris before 
seven o'clock. We got there at ten minutes 
to nine. 

All along the line we had been side-tracked 
or held up to let long military trains have the 
right of way — trains packed with poilus — 
those closed cars marked " honimes, 40, 
chevaux, 8;" you remember them? — with 
men sitting in the open doors, their feet 
hanging out, all smoking and laughing, trains 
camoufle with splashes of green and dirt- 
coloured paint ; trucks on which were mounted 
all sorts of cannon, their noses in the air, 
trains of ammunition wagons, trains of trucks 
carrying huge gas-tanks with all sorts of 
cautionary directions in huge letters, and, 
finally, as we drew out of Vaires and stopped, 
we came alongside of the first train blinde 
and the first tanks I had ever seen. The 
huge armoured train — camoufle, of course 
— consisted of four enormous cars, and each 
had its lower car for the gunners. On the 
lower roofs sat the men, singing and laugh- 
ing — most of them in their shirt-sleeves—^ 
extraordinary for French boys — and each 
car had its mascot. On one was a white 
lamb, with a ribbon about his neck. On one 
was a monkey. On one was a white poodle, 
[ 210 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

who looked as If he had just had a bath. On 
the fourth was a bird in a cage. 

Somehow all this bucked me up tremen- 
dously. Every one was hanging out of the 
car windows. There was a hearty exchange 
of courtesies. There was no sign of any- 
thing but high faith and cheery good humour 
on the faces of any of these men, who, inside 
a very few hours, would probably be In the 
thick of it. I drew a long breath as I 
thought to myself, "Well, the French are 
not all dead yet. With spirit like this they 
ought to be able to stem the tide." 

The scene at the station In Paris beggared 
all description. Never since the war began 
have I seen anything like it. The baggage 
was piled, pell-mell, on the platforms. It 
had been apparently many days since there 
had been any empty space in the baggage 
rooms. One had to pick one's way through 
it to find an exit. I found an old porter who 
knew me to carry my bag, and gave him a 
receipt for my trunk. He shook his head 
and advised me not to try to get it that night, 
as it would surely be hours before I could 
find it, and by that time it would be impos- 
sible to get a cab, as it would be dark, and 
cabs do not care to make long trips after 
dark, when a Gotha attack is an almost 
nightly occurrence. There seemed to be 
nothing else to do, although, as I looked 
about, I saw no reason why anyone could not 

■[ 211 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

help himself to a good-looking small trunk 
like mine and walk off with it. 

When we got outside there was no cab in 
sight, and a crowd waiting. So the old man 
told me to stay right where I was — not 
budge, no matter what happened, even if he 
should be ten minutes. So there I stood fixed 
in the twilight, watching the scene. Now 
and then a taxi-auto would come in through 
the gate. Instantly twenty people would 
rush to meet it. It was a real case of short 
distance sprinting and no favour. 

But that did not interest me as much as the 
big camions of the American Red Cross 
which have done most of the rescue work 
during this evacuation. The refugees who 
arrive at this station, after they have been 
fed and cleaned, are carried by these big 
camions to the stations on the lines going 
out to the south and west. It was exciting 
for Parisians to see these great open 
camions, with sturdy American lads In their 
sombreros, in their shirt-sleeves, — with the 
sleeves rolled to the elbows at that, — stand- 
ing braced on widespread feet, with their 
arms folded, as the autos bumped over the 
pavements. 

It was not ten, but twenty, minutes before 
my old porter finally came back, riding on 
the running-board of a taxi. I was glad to 
see him, I can tell you. It was already dark. 
It was ten o'clock when I reached my desti- 
[ 212 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

nation, and I had left home at four, and had 
had no dinner — not that this is very impor- 
tant in these days. 

I had not even got through talking when 
the alerte sounded. But this is getting to be 
a common occurrence, so that it would not 
be worth recording, if it had not been a 
rather unusual raid. It was quarter to 
eleven when the first gun fired, and fifty-five 
minutes later came the berloque. But while 
the ''all clear" was being bugled in the 
streets there came a second alerte, and for a 
few minutes the sirene and the B-flat bugle 
did a duet, and I assure you it was comic. 
People who had started from the abris said 
the whole thing was very funny — the bugler 
lowered his bugle, — the fireman began toot- 
ing his horn, — people who had come out of 
the cellars ran back — anyway, here are 
more points for the future makers of farce- 
comedy. 

After it was all over we stood for a while 
on the balcony listening to the church bells 
ringing out the message ''all clear" in the 
suburbs. It sounded so pretty. It is a pity 
that so alluring a sound in the night should 
be associated with anything so sinister. On 
our hill, the alerte is given by tolling the 
bells. I don't enjoy that. We have no " all 
clear " signal. We know when the forts stop 
firing that it is over. 

As soon as I had my trunk in Paris I 

[ 213 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

wanted to go right home again. I found real 
comfort In the fact that if I were driven out 
of my home I should have at least a change 
of shoes — they are so costly just now — sev- 
enty-five francs a pair for shoes that in the 
old days cost twenty-five. But since I was 
in town it seemed wise to look the situation 
over carefully and provide for possibilities. 
One thing was certain — if I were actually 
forced out by military operations, with which 
neither fear nor my own wishes had anything 
to do, why then Paris would be no place to 
stay. 

There is not in my mind the smallest 
chance of Paris ever being taken or besieged. 
But there is a chance that, if the Germans 
pass Compiegne, they can mount the guns 
which bombarded Antwerp, and still pound 
Dunkirk, and Paris may, for a few days, be 
seriously bombarded. In case of that possi- 
bility becoming a fact, I imagine that few of 
us foreigners would be allowed to stay in 
Paris, and I have spent all day to-day, which 
is Sunday, arranging for that eventuality, — 
that is to say, all except what has been spent 
writing you this long letter. 



[ 214 ] 



XXV 

June 4y 1918 

Well, here I am at home again, and I 
have been very busy ever since I got here, 
most of the time chuckling. Life is not all 
tragic, and it is only a breath over the line to 
laughter, as usual. 

I came back on Monday, the second, as 
I said I should. The drive on Paris at both 
Chateau-Thierry and Compiegne seems to 
be held up. The Boches are in Chateau- 
Thierry, and they have crossed the Marne 
at Dormans, southeast of Chateau-Thierry, 
but they are still outside Compiegne. Yes- 
terday was the eighth day of the big battle, 
and it almost appears to be a rule that an 
eight days' drive is about all an army can 
stand. 

The trip back was what it always is in 
these days, as almost the only soldiers I meet 
on the train are the boys from the States. 
But they are not much given, just now, to 
talk. They know little about the country, 
and their one desire seems to be to get on to 
the job, get it done, and get home. Besides, 
in spite of anything one can do, there is a 
different feeling in one's heart towards them. 
The French and English seem hardened to 

[ 215 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

it, and take it all as a matter of course. The 
boys from the States do not, yet. 

I found Amelie waiting at the station. 
She was visibly surprised to see me. It was 
quite evident that she had not expected me. 
She drove me up the hill quite sadly, and 
her only comment was : 

'' Now you '11 have to do it all over again. 
I was comfortable, knowing you were safe, 
and now I 've got to go through it all again." 

When I got to the house, the moment I 
opened the door I discovered one reason for 
her discomfort at my return. The house 
was dismantled. My first impulse was to 
scold, but when I realized how hard they 
must all have worked, and with what good 
intention, I decided to laugh loud and long 
instead. 

I wish you could have seen the house. 
There was not a curtain. There was not a 
dish in the dining-room nor in the kitchen. 
The mirrors were down, and pictures on the 
floor, faces to the wall. My winter clothes, 
all the bed and body linen and even kitchen 
towels had been packed, and everything car- 
ried up the hill and hidden underground. 
My first impulse as I looked about the dis- 
mantled home was to be very cross, but, be- 
fore I opened my mouth I looked into the 
library. There stood my books all along the 
walls. She had not dared touch them. The 
hearty laugh the sight simply knocked out 

[ 216 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

of me gave me time to appreciate it. As 
soon as I could get my face straight I said: 
" Oh, Amelie, Amelie ! And you said, in 
1 9 14, that nothing would ever induce you to 
do a thing like this again! " 

"Well, mistress," she replied, "it's your 
things I 've hidden this time," which was per- 
fectly true. Her own home had not been 
touched. 

There was no reply to be made to that ex- 
cept that I was grateful to her for leaving 
me something to read and my typewriter. 
She had hidden the phonograph. 

She explained that she saw no way to hide 
the books, as there were not cases enough 
or time enough — and she reasoned that if 
the house were destroyed, and evidently she 
had made up her mind to that, I could go on 
without books, but that I would be glad to 
have bedding and dishes and clothes. I saw 
her point of view. She did not see mine. 

So you can guess how I am living. Amelie 
has made me up one bed with her sheets. I 
drink my coffee out of a bowl, and stir it with 
a pewter spoon. I have two plates and a 
knife and fork from her house. I know a 
little of discomforts of which, up to now, I 
have had none. I am going to support it a 
few days. I really have not the heart to 
order all that hard work done over again at 
once, especially as Amelie is not yet sure that 
I may not have to leave. 

[ 217 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

The atmosphere is anything but calm here. 
Meaux was bombarded yesterday, and more 
harm done in an hour than during the entire 
battle of the Marne. In addition, one of the 
first regiments du choc, the boys who fell 
back in the first hours of the attack of 
May 27 — less than two hundred are left of 
the regiment — came here to rest before re- 
tiring further to reorganize. Naturally they 
arrived in a sadly demoralized condition, in 
a commune rather demoralized already. It 
was an unfortunate combination. It was the 
first time that the poiliis had ever brought 
anything but courage, hope and gaiety into 
the place. 

Yet let me tell you a strange thing. Even 
with Amelie, whose mind is made up that we 
are to be invaded, that idea does not for a 
moment mean that she believes in a defeat. 
It does not do even to say to her " the Ger- 
mans are so strong." Any speech like that 
arouses her anger. She replies with a vicious 
emphasis : 

"They are no stronger than we are. If 
they are, why have they not beaten us, when 
they were ready, and we were not, when they 
are so much more numerous than we are, and 
have three times as many guns? " And they 
have, you know. But that does not prevent 
one from dreading an invasion all the same. 

As long ago as the first weeks of the war 
I wrote you that I could not foresee a defeat 

[ 218 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

for France, and that I believed that even if 
her armies were beaten back to Bordeaux, 
with their backs against the Biscay, I was 
convinced they would still hold out. Of 
course they could not have, if all the world 
had not come to their aid, but is n't it a legit- 
imate matter of pride that France, as a na- 
tion and as a people, has made herself so 
dear to the affections of he world, and the 
cause for which she stands so just, that 
twenty governments have ranged themselves 
beside her, so that even though Paris be 
taken, even though the army of France be 
wiped out, Germany would have no chance 
to win, for all the United States will come 
over before that can happen. 

I sometimes wonder if it is possible for 
you to understand just what it means to be 
French to-day? The men from the States, 
great as their sacrifice is, leave their women 
and children in security. The men of France, 
standing out there in that battle-line, have 
not that comfort, for, while they are offering 
their lives for the cause, right over their 
heads the enemy is sending death to their 
very firesides. Startling idea, isn't it? 

Our roads are full of moving artillery — 
Americans passing everywhere, and the en- 
thusiasm for them grows every day. 

The heavy artillery was very noisy at 
noon. But we are so used to that that we 
are nervous without it. When we don't hear 

[ 219 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

it every one here thinks nothing is doing, and 
that, in spite of the fact that we all know 
the present battle is a battle of movement, 
an infantry battle, the sort of battle in which 
the French are most at home. 

It looks to-night as if Compiegne were 
safe, although it has suffered badly from the 
artillery fire. Do you remember the last 
day we were there, and lunched at the hand- 
some new hotel at the entrance of the forest, 
with its wide verandah and its awnings — so 
much more English than French, — and how 
we drove through the forest to take tea at 
Pierrefonds ? I remember it was a hunts day, 
and every little way, down the long vistas of 
trees, we saw the huntsmen dashing across, 
and heard the horns. It is a lovely memory. 
Though the town is so badly hurt, we are 
told the palace, with its souvenirs of Napo- 
leon III, has been spared by order of the 
Kaiser, as it was there he planned to make 
his last rest on the route to Paris, to put on 
his white uniform de parade, and take his 
automobile for the fortifications, where his 
war-horse was to wait him and carry him 
into Paris, and through the Arc de Tri- 
omphe, — another of those illusions already 
twice destroyed, since he waited outside 
Nancy, ready to enter. It has been a close 
shave each time, but " a miss is as good as 
a mile." 

[ 220 ] 



XXVI 

June 22, JQiS 

Things have not changed much since I 
wrote you. The battle seems for the mo- 
ment stationary, but we all know that it is 
only held up until the Germans can re-organ- 
ize another coup. As that of March 21st 
extended from Cherizy to the forest of 
Coucy, and that of May 27th along the 
tragic Chemin des Dames, from the defences 
of Soissons to Reims and across the Marne 
the other side of Chateau-Thierry, about 
thirty miles from us, we are unusually nerv- 
ous right here as to the direction of the next 
attack. If it should be in the direction of 
Meaux it would be all up with us. 

By a strange chance it is on the sector 
which includes Chateau-Thierry that the 
boys from the States are holding the line and 
holding it bravely — brilliantly. Isn't it 
odd to think that while they are all along the 
line it should be at the point where an ad- 
vance would menace my house that the " boys 
from home " should be doing their most con- 
spicuous work? The people about me are 
really sentimental on the subject. You 
would think, from their attitude, that I had 

[ 221 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

especially ordered the arrangement. Per- 
haps I will be mobbed if they don't hold on ! 

We hear the guns intermittently. There 
is an almost daily movement of American 
troops over the route to Meaux. I do not 
see them. We have been dealt three air 
raids since I last wrote, and now, as we have 
a tir de barrage from five points in an arc 
about us, the noise of the guns of defence is 
terrible. 

Almost every day a new group of refugees 
arrive. We have a large number from Acy, 
near Soissons, and within a mile or two of 
Sarches, where the Englishwomen who used 
to be at Meaux, and of whom I think I wrote 
you, went last fall to organize a big foyer. 
Somehow, in all the excitement of the last 
month, it was not until the people from Acy 
arrived that I realized that, of course, 
the big foyer at Sarches must have been 
destroyed. 

It was. 

A week ago last Tuesday they surprised 
me by walking into the garden. They had 
come over from Meaux, where they stopped 
in the retreat, to help in the hospital, where 
they were short of nurses. I am afraid they 
were surprised when they found me here. 
They insisted that I was not to stay, that the 
Americans at Meaux sent word that, if I 
were still here, I was to be told that I was 
" crazy to stay." 
[ 222 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

They had passed through a terrible ex- 
perience, seeing all they had organized so 
well, and all they had collected and arranged 
— libraries, music rooms, tennis courts, dear 
little houses and gardens — destroyed, and 
had made a tragic retreat over roads full of 
empty gun-carriages, flying women and chil- 
dren, retreating soldiers, exploding ammuni- 
tion as the retiring army destroyed its stores 
to prevent the Germans from getting what 
could not be carried. They arrived, nerve- 
tired, at Meaux to go right into the crowded 
hospital, just in time (they were on night 
service) to stand to their posts when the air 
raid on the morning of the third of June did 
such damage only a short distance from the 
ambulance. It was no wonder that they 
were a bit pessimistic about our chances here. 
They were sweetly sympathetic about the 
house and my library, and wanted me to 
make an effort to get military automobiles to 
come and take away my treasures before it 
was too late. 

But for that I had no ambition. Militai"}' 
automobiles have too much work to do which 
is more important, and I thought it would be 
time enough, if ever, when we were warned 
to get out. 

" But you will get no warning," they ex- 
claimed; " if you wait for that it will be too 
late." 

But my mind was made up. I have often 

[ 223 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

wondered what would become of all the stuff 
I have collected about me when I have done 
with it. Don't you remember, even in the 
old days before I came out here, I used to 
laugh about it with you? A poor person's 
library, got together haphazard, is like one's 
collection of friends, — no one else wants it. 
I 'd hate the idea of its being sold, and turn- 
ing up for years after in the dusty boxes on 
the quais, as I have, in my time, found the 
books of others. Well, if it were to go up in 
smoke, as my sacrifice for the victory, I 
shan't care. In fact, it will be a fine end, and 
settle one anxiety in my mind. 

They insisted so much about, at least, my 
leaving that I was glad to be able to tell them 
that I was going to Paris next day, and I did 
not tell them that I was coming directly back 
— but I did. 

I was glad I went, for I had a most inter- 
esting trip, and saw thousands of our boys. 
I don't see much of them unless I do move 
about a bit, for they just rush by here to 
Chateau-Thierry. 

I went up last Friday. On the route de 
Meaux, as I drove down to the station, I 
found the road simply full of cainion-\o3.ds 
of the boys from home. As Ninette walked 
slowly along the line, I leaned out to call my 
greeting to the boys In English. I wish you 
could have seen their smiling faces. It took 
Ninette half an hour to go from the top of 
[ 224 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

the hill down to the station, and I did my best 
to give them a solo acclamation all the way, 
and they returned the compliment. 

As my train ran into Esbly, we passed car- 
load after carload, side-tracked outside the 
station, all in their shirt-sleeves, sitting in the 
cattle-cars which carry the French troops, 
eating their breakfast in picnic fashion. I 
longed to run back down the track to greet 
them, but I had not time, so I bought up all 
the English papers I could get — a few Paris 
Heralds and Daily Mails — and sent them 
down by the station-master, who was only 
too glad to make the trip. 

The excitement in the station was intense. 
Every one was crowded on the end of the 
platform from which the train-load of Amer- 
icans could be seen. You would have 
thought, from their air, that the war would 
be over day after to-morrow. You should 
have seen their faces and heard the tone of 
their voices when they spoke of " ces braves 
garqons de rAmerique." I told you at the 
time that war was declared in Washington 
that we were a lucky people. Our boys have 
come over to cast the deciding vote in a long- 
tied struggle. They are going to get credit 
for that decision. Please God they '11 play 
up to the enthusiasm there is for them, — 
and modestly do full justice to the great sac- 
rifices which have prepared the road for 
them. 

[ 225 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

It is lucky that in these days I rarely read 
in the train — the road is too interesting — 
otherwise I should have missed seeing the 
groups of lads from the States bivouacked 
all along the line, lying on the banks or 
grouped about eating. I rode most of the 
way at the open window, waving my greet- 
ings, and they not only always waved back as 
cordially as if they had known I was a fellow 
citizen, but often rose to their feet to do it. 

I found Paris quiet, — it was the fifteenth, 
and the big gun had ceased firing on the 
twelfth, and there had been no air raids for 
nine nights. But on Sunday night there was 
a terrible one, in which there were lives lost 
and a big fire started. It began at twenty 
minutes after eleven and lasted until one 
o'clock — long enough to spoil the night. 

On the train Monday I read the news that 
the big offensive for Venice had begun, so 
there is one more cause for hourly suspense, 
but the worst seemed to be over in three days 
— this time the Italians are holding. 

The weather has been queer. For a month 
here we had practically no rain, and every- 
thing is drying up. My lawn is a pitiful 
sight, but that is no matter. What does 
matter are the potatoes and beans. 

Last night we had a most remarkable sun- 
set. I never saw anything at all like it, or 
anything of the sort that was so strangely 
beautiful. The western horizon was like the 
[ 226 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

Barnes of a huge fire — copper and gold with 
I background of sullen red. From the point 
[vhere the sun was sinking started broad 
:louds like banners, extending in even rays, 
[ike the spokes of a wheel, up to the zenith 
and paling down to the east. These cloud 
rays were almost white on one edge and 
t)lackish gray on the other. They were even 
in width, and as evenly spaced as if done with 
I compass, and they curved with the dome of 
;he heavens. Every one was out on the hill 
'o watch the spectacle, and if I had seen it in 
1 picture and not with my own eyes, I could 
lot have believed it to be a true bill. 



[ 227 ] 



XXVII 

June 2g, igi8 

I GOT up this morning feeling as if I had 
never had a trouble in the world. All my 
nervousness had disappeared in the night. 
I 'd like to think that it presages something 
remarkable. I am afraid it only means that 
I slept from ten to six without budging, — 
which is unusual. You can guess how sound 
my sleep was when I tell you that there was 
a raid last night, and I never heard it. I am 
generally a light sleeper. I never expected 
to arrive at sleeping through a bombardment. 
But I have. So it may be that I am getting 
used to it. I am willing, for it's small serv- 
ice I can render listening to the racket. I 
can't stop the bombs, nor bring down the 
Gothas, though if wishing it on them would 
accomplish it they would long ago have been 
all annihilated. 

It has been rather a busy and picturesque 
week. 

Last Sunday — that was the twenty-third 
— we had the 304th dragoons camped here 
for the night — the very biggest cantonne- 
ment we have ever had, and I had the Cap- 
tain in the house. 
[ 228 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

They arrived at six o'clock, and it was one 
of the hottest days I ever saw. They had 
been in the saddle since four in the morning. 

The quartermaster and a couple of cor- 
porals had been here all day preparing the 
cantonnement. We had eighty horses in the 
little railed-in pasture on the top of the hill, 
which we never thought was too big for 
Ninette and Bijou, and fifty in the smaller 
one where we used to put the goat. These 
two little pares, as Pere calls them, are on 
either side of the devise, a bit of City of 
Paris land following the line of the Paris 
water conduits from the Ourcq to Paris, and 
across it runs a footpath, always kept clear, 
which is barred at regular distances so that 
it resembles a hurdle-course, though it is only 
for pedestrians. 

I never had such respect or understanding 
for the tremendous work required to keep an 
army going as I had while I watched that 
regiment arrange itself just for this etape of 
ten hours. Every one knew just what to do. 
In less than an hour after the head of the line 
came into the courtyard at Pere's where the 
kitchens and big commissary wagons were set 
up, all was in order. 

I sat on a big stone beside the road and, 
while the horses were being led in a line to 
the watering-troughs, I saw the speed with 
which posts four feet high attached with 
heavy cords were driven into the ground some 

[ 229 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

ten feet apart along both sides of the footpath. 
To these posts such of the horses as could 
not be stabled or put Into our little enclosures, 
were attached by their halters. It took al- 
most less time than It takes me to write it for 
saddles to be removed, nose bags to be ad- 
justed, and there, close around the four sides 
of the enclosures, and almost shoulder to 
shoulder down either side of the footpath, 
the horses ate, while saddles were being in- 
spected and piled in regular heaps in the 
centre of the enclosure and against the bar- 
riers on the outside. Every one was busy, 
there was plenty of blague falling about, but 
no one seemed to get Into anyone's way, and 
by nine o'clock everybody was eating. 

My ! but it takes lots to feed them. They 
threw whole beeves out of the big camion^ 
— an old Paris tram-car, if you please, with 
windows replaced by wire screenings, inside 
which the beef and mutton hung up just as it 
does at the butcher's, — while whole kegs of 
beer had a camion of their own, and the 
vegetable kettles were almost as big as 
barrels. 

While the dinner was preparing, and a 
huge dish of eggs which it took two men to 
carry was being cooked in my kitchen, the 
men washed up wherever they could find a 
place. I suppose you have heard that the 
poilu never washes unless he has to. It is a 
standard joke. There are exceptions. You 
[ 230 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

ought to have seen the court at Amelle's, and 
what I sarcastically call my basse cour. 

Long ago, when I thought I 'd raise geese 
— I never told you about that, perhaps? — 
one of my follies — for lack of a brook I 
bought a huge, flat, round bathtub. It was a 
metre and a half in diameter. When I gave 
up raising geese the tub was put in the tool 
house, and there it stood on end. The poilus 
found it. Just as I was coming through the 
long garden at Amelie's, which runs beside 
the chickens' home, with only a high grillage 
between, a loud voice warned me with: ^''At- 
tention. Defense d'entrer. Salle de bain 
privee^'' and I got through the gate in time 
to avoid a study in the nude. Amelie ex- 
plained when I got through that they were 
sprinkling one another in the tub with the big 
watering-pot. 

They were still eating when I went to bed. 

As I closed up for the night I thought to 
myself '' It is dollars to doughnuts that the 
Gothas will come to-night." And just before 
eleven they did, and the barrage was not 
silent until midnight. 

Amelie told me in the morning that the 
boys simply put out their lights, and finished 
cleaning and repacking in the dark. 

Just imagine how much actual work all 
this means, when I tell you that at three 
o'clock the next morning they were up and at 
work, and at half-past three they were in the 

[ 231 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

saddle, and the long line of cavalry and the 
big commissary wagons and the ammunition 
train, with its mule-drawn mitrailleuses, were 
trotting and rattling on the road again. 

We had one day's rest and then the 102nd 
artillery came in for the same sort of a re- 
pose. It was a different kind of cantonne-^ 
ment, of course, as there were no horses ex- 
cept those of the officers; everything else — 
men, cannon, ammunition, equipment — was 
carried on camions and in lorries. But the 
little road in front of my house has never 
been so picturesque. All along that road 
from the turn above the well at Amelie's to 
that below where it goes into Voisins, in 
front of Mademoiselle Henriette's, a line of 
camions carrying guns was drawn up, and in 
the open space in front of my gate the am- 
munition wagons were simply packed. In 
this etape there were no kitchens and no com- 
missary. The men each carried one day's 
rations, and the officers rode down to the 
hotel at Couilly to dine. 

I thought, as I looked out of my bedroom 
window, that night, ^^ Laf la! if the Gothas 
get this to-night they will make a mess." 
But they did not. And before daylight the 
next day they were off. 

We are still waiting for some sign of the 
next movement at the front, and of course 
all this military activity means something. 

The artillery had hardly got away when 
[ 232 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

news came that the 21st dragoons were com- 
ing in, and while I was talking to the Cap- 
tain's orderly, who was arranging the offi- 
cers' quarters here, and I was explaining the 
kitchen to the cook — for four officers were 
to eat in the house — I got a telegram from 
Paris telling me to come up without delay, 
as I was wanted at the Embassy. So I had 
just time to welcome the Captain as he rode 
in, and catch the noon train. 

I went directly to the Embassy, where I 
was informed that, at the request of the 
French Government, all strangers were being 
asked to leave Paris as well as the war zone. 
The explanation given was that while no one 
thought it possible that the Germans could 
get to Paris, it was possible — perhaps prob- 
able — that Paris would be bombarded. As 
far as I was personally concerned they con- 
sidered my situation untenable, as even a 
slight advance on the Marne would bring 
me within fifteen miles of the firing line, 
where I would be an embarrassment to the 
army, — in fact, though they put it more 
politely, a nuisance. All my papers had to 
be examined and vised, and I had to select 
a place to go, which was properly written 
against my name in the list of Americans 
allowed, in the last combing out, to remain 
in France, and then I was told that, as I 
lived in the zone des armees, and travelled 
at the pleasure of the Fifth army corps, I 

[ 233 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

would have to go to the French bureau which 
controlled circulation on the railroads, and 
get a French vise. 

Before we left the house we had agreed 
that if it became necessary to leave the town 
we would go to Versailles, as a first etape. 
It is outside the fortifications to the south- 
west, and in case of need it would be easier 
to retreat west from there than from the 
city proper. Of course what the authorities 
are really trying to do is to avoid the possi- 
bility of a panic at the railway stations at 
the last minute in case the town is bombarded. 
There are plenty of people who will not take 
this warning seriously, but a great number 
will, and the fewer people there are in the 
city the better. 

The passport department had been 
crowded. It was evident that they were 
combing people out carefully. I had only 
escaped hours of waiting on the stairs by 
being discovered by an old Boston friend 
who needed a witness to swear to her iden- 
tity. But, even with that advantage, which 
admitted me long before my turn, the process 
was a long one, and my papers were exam- 
ined by at least six men before I escaped 
and pushed my way downstairs through the 
waiting crowd. I had been telegraphed for 
by a friend as we were called alphabetically. 

From the Embassy I went to the French 
bureau on the rue de Rivoli. There I found 

[ 234 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

the waiting line extending down the street 
and round the corner, and at that hour of 
the day the sun shines right Into the colon- 
nade. There I stood In the heat, In a push- 
ing line, for an hour before my turn came 
to even enter the building. When I finally 
got In and found my proper man, I was told 
that my papers were In perfect order, that I 
could go to Versailles whenever I desired. 
And I was told that the sooner I left Paris 
the better. I took the advice forty-eight 
hours later, but I did not go to Versailles, 
I came back here. I tell you all this just to 
show you what It Is like to be here now. 
There Is an even chance either way, that's 
all. 

I stayed in town Wednesday and Thurs- 
day night, and came home yesterday. On 
both nights there was a bad air raid. That 
on Wednesday destroyed a big shop which 
we both know, and that on Thursday was 
the noisiest I have heard since March, and 
one of the most destructive. It began at 
half-past nine and lasted until midnight, and 
the bombs seemed to be distributed over a 
wide area. Just as In the big March raid I 
had happened, by accident, on one of the 
bombarded regions, so yesterday morning I 
went through another on my way to the 
station — the Place Vendome. But all the 
damage I could see was a terrible destruc- 
tion of window glass. There was hardly a 
whole pane In the square. 

[ 235 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

On arriving at Couilly I found the road 
up the hill full of ammunition camions, and 
Ninette climbed up with the huge camions 
full of big obus crawling by. I own to have 
felt foolishly nervous as they jerked slowly 
along. I felt as if, should one backslide or 
topple over, I should see Kingdom-come be- 
fore this cruel war was over. Of course I 
knew they wouldn't, but we have had some 
queer accidents on that road since the great 
activity which has never ceased began on 
May twenty-sixth. 

I found the 2ist dragoons had gone. 
Amelie said they had seemed very happy — 
the officers — and I imagine they had a bet- 
ter time than if I had been at home, for they 
had the freedom of the house and no fear 
that they were putting its mistress out. 
Amelie said they did not leave the garden 
at all — -that they read and played cards and 
wrote and chatted all day, and had their 
coffee out on the lawn; but I found a little 
note, tucked into the drawer in the salon 
table, from the Captain, saying: 

" Please read here the cordial thanks and 
respectful homages of a Captain who was 
bitterly disappointed that his charming host- 
ess, as soon as he had set eyes on her, 
disappeared." 

Really, aren't they wonderful? It is not 
only that they feel the necessity to do that 
sort of thing, but that they are so uncon- 

[ 236 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

scious and do It so well, and sign it all up 
with their names and rank. 

I told you that I was feeling very chipper 
when I began this, and I am. I wish I knew 
why. It is not only that; I simply ordered 
Amelie this morning to set my house in 
order. I don't care how many people she 
gets to help her. It must be done at once. 
She argues that since things are put away 
they may as well stay until we are sure of the 
next move, but I say " No," and when I say 
it loud like that I am always obeyed. 

Besides, just to show you how well I feel, 
I have decided to go to Paris both for the 
Fourth and the Fourteenth of July. Paris 
is going to make our Independence Day a 
national fete, and on the Fourteenth I shall 
know that somewhere you will be watching 
the States celebrating Bastille Day at the 
same time that I am standing somewhere in 
Paris cheering the Allies. Well, of course, 
not exactly that, because really I shall be in 
the streets while you are still sleeping at two 
in the morning, and I shall be at tea when 
you see your procession start, but that 's not 
important. The Allied spirit of the thing 
is what matters. This is a great decision for 
me. You know how I hate a crowd. But 
there will be few more things of this sort 
left for me, and I do feel that perhaps this 
is the first scene in the last act. You see 
how very much on the right side of the bed 
I got out this morning. 

[ 237 ] 



XXVIII 

July 12, igiS 

Well, I can tell you this is dry season. 
If it were important I should grieve over 
my garden. You should see my dahlias. I 
don't ask them to be superb until later, but 
they never came up in such a state as they 
have this year. The slugs ate them as fast 
as they came out of the ground, in spite 
of the fact that, armed with the tongs, I 
picked them up carefully twice a day. Such 
dirty slimy things, all sizes and all colours, 
from little pale white things and ditto black 
up to big fat yellow fellows and ditto brown, 
with horrid heads like seals and bulging 
eyes, which they draw in and close when you 
touch them. In spite of all that hard and 
disagreeable work the first leaves were all 
eaten and the first buds to open are small, 
because of the lack of water, and worse than 
that, they are half eaten away by the slugs. 
But never mind, I had the fun of playing at 
gardening, and now I can busy myself doc- 
toring them. We have had every variety of 
weather this week. It was piping hot on 
Sunday, it blew hard on Tuesday, was clear 
and sunny like an autumn day on Wednes- 

[ 238 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

day, It showered on Thursday, it opened and 
shut on Friday, it pours to-day. Variety, 
anyway. In spite of the terrible drought 
of which the farmers complain with reason, 
and which has dwarfed all my posies and 
scorched my lawn yellow, the grain looks 
well, and I have never heard the larks sing 
as they sing these mornings and evenings, as 
I watch them mounting and mounting, their 
rippling notes falling out of the clouds long 
after the bird is invisible. And there are so 
many finches. There is one who sits and 
gives a real concert on the ridge-pole of the 
house every day, and I am just as nice an 
audience as I know for him — always with 
an eye that Khaki does not sneak up there, 
for I suspect Khaki and doubt if he makes 
any distinction between birds that sing and 
birds that don't, when he goes a-hunting. 

You ask me if the winter is going to be a 
hard one. Well, to tell you the truth, except 
that I know it is to be another winter with 
the army "out there," I have not thought 
much about it. Anyway, what were hard- 
ships for four winters will not be so bad this 
winter, because I am used to them, and ex- 
pect nothing else. I am getting in wood 
every day. It is easier to get it than it has 
been in the previous war years, and I am 
buying it everywhere, and shall as long as I 
can find any place to put it. What the army 
is going to say I don't know, for there is a 

[ 239 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

board on my gate which announces billets 
for one officer and twenty men, and I am 
afraid my wood is filling up the soldiers' 
bedrooms. But I suppose we '11 find some 
way out of it. Perhaps the army will settle 
it by taking my wood away. 

We have heard the artillery at the front 
almost every day since I last wrote to you, 
but the newspapers say nothing which ex- 
plains. The soldiers, going through, say 
" Don't worry. All is going well. In eight 
days you can expect to get good news," and 
that has to content us for the present. 

On Monday of last week we had an air 
raid, which began at quarter before eleven 
and lasted until nearly two the next morning 
— that was the first day of this month — 
and the next morning, at half-past seven, 
while I was in the garden, there was a heavy 
tir de barrage, but it appeared to be directed 
to the protection of Meaux, though it was 
impossible to be sure, in spite of my hearing 
the Boche machine distinctly. As spent shot 
began to rattle on the roof, I thought it pru- 
dent to take to cover. 

The next day I went up to Paris to pass 
the Fourth, as I wrote you I should. Before 
I left I made sure that our two communes 
and Huiry itself had American flags, and 
left Amelie to fling the Stars and Stripes to 
the French breezes over the gate here and 
under the bedroom windows, and on the 

[ 240 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

road side of her house. That Is all the fete 
there will be here, but it is enough. 

The Fourth was a lovely day. Every one 
had anticipated, and even the papers had not 
hesitated to say, that it was more than likely 
that the Boches would consider the national 
fete-day of the States, to be gloriously cele- 
brated in the streets of the French capital, 
as a legitimate opportunity to bring into play 
again their long-distance cannon. But the 
Kaiser, if he expected that possibility would 
keep anyone from going into the streets to 
see the boys from the States march down the 
Champs-Elysees, had another disappoint- 
ment. 

We had no desire to hear the discourses 
nor to see the statesmen sitting in the official 
tribunes — the former we could read later, 
and the latter were an old story. We had 
instead a desire to see the crowd in the street 
and the movement and watch the reception 
of the troops at various points of the short 
march from Washington's monument at the 
head of the newly christened Avenue Presi- 
dent Wilson to the Strasbourg monument on 
the Place de la Concorde. 

The streets in the vicinity of the line of 
march were crowded, and everywhere, even 
in the quiet and deserted streets of the other 
quarters, were the American flags. There 
was no shop too small to show one. Bonnes 
on the way to market had the Stars and 

[ 241 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

Stripes on their market baskets. Every taxi- 
cab was decorated with the flag, and so 
was every decrepit old sapin. It floated on 
the tram-cars and the omnibuses, it hung 
out of almost every window, and at the 
entrance of the big apartment houses, already 
closed but for the presence of the concierge. 
Crippled soldiers distributed tiny flags on 
all the streets. We took ours, two steps 
from the door, from a one-legged chasseur 
Alpin, who ran about on his peg as lively as a 
cricket, and as gay — only twenty-two he 
told me, three years' service stripes on his 
sleeve, and a croix de guerre and medaille 
militaire on his breast, and he laughed in my 
face when I looked grave as he pinned a flag 
on me, and remarked, " Don't you mind, 
I 'm not done with them yet; " and away he 
hopped across the street to pin an American 
flag on some one else. 

We took a cab and drove along the line 
looking, from our higher elevation, over the 
heads of the crowds behind each barrier, as 
no one could approach without a ticket to 
within a block in any direction of the grand- 
stand — there was only one. My object was 
to see the cortege passing down the Champs- 
Elysees from the Rond Point to the Place de 
la Concorde. So we drove to the Avenue 
Gabriel, and, close to the garden entrance to 
the Presidential residence we got out and 
walked across the garden between the Ambas- 
[ 242 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

sadeurs and the Alcazar, now given up to the 
American work for the aid of the French 
wounded. You remember just the place, for 
I know we went there to dine together ten 
years ago. You remember? We sat at a 
table in the balcony just opposite the stage, 
and had what you called " the best table 
d'hote dinner for the price " you had ever 
eaten, and watched a good variety show — 
or at least I did. I remember that you were 
more interested in the women walking about 
in the couloirs^ and the wonderful clothes. 
Alas ! those days are gone. 

On arriving near the Avenue some one 
helped me mount on to a bench, where, over 
the heads of the throng massed at the curb, 
I could look up and down the Avenue, with 
an American aviator, in a Liberty machine, 
doing stunts over my head just above the 
tree-tops, and I assure you I had my heart in 
my mouth most of the time. 

The crowd that packed the line of march 
was almost as picturesque as the procession. 
As far as the French went it was, of course, 
largely women, children, and white-haired 
men, with a sprinkling of poHus on leave, 
convalescent soldiers — the crippled soldiers 
had a reserved stand near the head of the 
route — and a great number of English and 
American men in khaki — the Red Cross and 
Y. M. C. A. units, the commissary men, who 
have their headquarters in the Avenue, and a 

[ 243 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

sprinkling of uniforms of all the nations In 
arms. The shouts and cheers went up in 
waves as the cortege started far away, but 
In the Avenue itself only began when the 
head of the line appeared preceded by the 
band. Then the cries of " Vivent les Ameri- 
cains,^^ '' Vivent nos Allies,^'' were cut with 
the "Hip, hip, hurrah!" of the Americans, 
and it culminated when the division of the 
Marines, in their battle-stained uniforms, 
their soiled but trim knapsacks on their backs, 
and their battered " tin hats " (the boys who 
cleared the Bois de Belleau), came into sight. 
I thought then that the kind of crowd which 
was gathered that day could not make any 
more noise than they made for the Ameri- 
cans, who, with their guns on their shoulders, 
marched as steadily as veterans, though their 
faces were the faces of boys. But I was 
mistaken, for, with a fine spirit that I loved, 
they had justly reserved their most ardent 
acclamations for their own war-worn troops, 
and the shouts of ^^ Vivent nos poiliis,^^ " Vive 
la France^'''' were as near hysterical as any- 
thing I have seen in France since the war 
began. I saw women laughing and crying at 
the same time, and only able to wave their 
hands in greeting. 

After it was all over, we found our taxi 
again and drove back up the Avenue. It 
looked so gay, with the crowds laughing and 
chatting and flowers everywhere. Paris had 

[ 244 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

needed to see its armies and cheer the boys 
from the front. It did them more visible 
good than all the heroic talk can ever do. 
I know it did me. 

I had loved seeing so many of our boys, 
not only in the procession, but the crowd in 
the street. I love seeing — good soldiers as 
they are proving themselves — how little 
they stand on ceremony in private life. The 
officers nod to one another instead of salut- 
ing. A common soldier or a corporal says 
" Hulloa, old man," to his lieutenant, with 
whom he probably went to school. Even in 
public an officer will sometimes stand uncov- 
ered as he talks in the street to a girl friend. 
It is only something so solemn as the passing 
of the colours that brings the American boy 
erect, his heels together, his shoulders 
squared, his hand at just the proper angle 
of salute, and when it is over, he slaps his 
hand on his leg in real regimental fashion -- 
and limbers up to the characteristic Ameri- 
can slouch again. 

I remarked to an American officer one 
day, as he lifted his hat to greet me, that 
he was most unmilitary, and his reply was: 
"Hell! We American soldiers are only 
camotifled civilians;" and that is terribly 
true, added to which they have not worn 
a uniform long enough to be unconscious in 
playing the role of a soldier. 

In spite of all the expectations of an attack 

[ 245 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

of some sort, the big cannon made no sign, 
and there was no air raid that night. 

I came back on the sixth, which was last 
Saturday. I had hardly got my hat and coat 
off when a French officer arrived at my gate 
to arrange for the cantonnement here of the 
American boys coming out from the secteiir 
at Chateau-Thierry — lads who fought at 
Bois de Belleau. You should have seen the 
face of the young American sergeant when 
I addressed him in English, and told him 
that I was an American. I don't know which 
of us was the most excited. 

The French officer, who spoke no English 
and depended on me to help him out, told me 
that there were seven Americans here to ar- 
range the cantonnement for fifteen hundred 

— a Town Major, a quartermaster, and a 
few corporals and sergeants, and that the 
rest were expected Monday morning. They 
were coming by road, marching on foot, and 
expected to take two days, in fact they were 
supposed to have already " come out.'* They 
are to rest a few days and go up to Paris the 
morning of the Fourteenth, to be decorated 

— the Marines won their fourragere in the 
Bois de Belleau — and to march in the 
procession. 

The weather was terribly hot, so when 
Monday came and went and there was no 
sign of the American Marines every one was 
as disappointed as I was, but we all explained 

[ 246 ] 



The Peak of the Lo.- 



\D 



It by the intense heat, which would make 
marching nearly forty miles no joke to tired 
soldiers just out of a battle. But Tuesday 
and Wednesday passed, and the advance 
guard of the battalion who had arrived here 
with only three days' rations began to worry 
a little. They were getting a new kind of 
taste of war. In the meantime they drifted 
round one after another to see me, play the 
phonograph and chat. I am afraid they 
were rather bored. They spoke little French, 
though they got on well with the French, and 
they had guard duty to do, and the Town 
Major kept strict discipline. But here it is 
Friday night, and I am leaving for Paris to- 
morrow to see the celebration of the Four- 
teenth. I do want to see the armies of all 
the Allies in the Avenue du Bois, otherwise I 
would not go until the Americans have come 
and are comfortably settled. 

Amelie is not at all content. She is afraid 
that she cannot properly replace me. She 
has made me write a note in English which 
she is to show any American soldier who 
comes to the door. It is just a line saying 
that they are welcome and are to consider 
the house as " a little piece of home," and 
make themselves comfortable accordingly. 
She stood over me while I wrote it on a big 
sheet of paper, imploring me to write it 
" very large and very distinct," which shows 
you what Amelie thinks of my handwriting. 

[ 247 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

She has pinned it on the blotter. She knows 
how to say " cum een," and I can imagine 
her taking them by the sleeve, and leading 
them up to the desk to read the proclama- 
tion. She has made me write " Mildred 
Aldrich, American," as a signature. 

By the way, Amelie's English does not 
march very rapidly. She can still say " I 
spek Engleesh vairee veil, oh yees." She 
says they understand her, but she does not 
get their reply, and is disappointed when I 
am not by to hear and tell her what they said. 
She has also learned to say " Got cigarette? " 
with a strong interrogatory Inflection. You 
see Amelle loves her cigarette, but she does 
not like Egyptians, the only thing available 
just now, when the ordinary French cigarette 
is not sold to civilians. That works very 
well. The boys understand, and if they have 
a cigarette they give It to her. But they 
more often have a pipe and tobacco. I have 
told Amelle that she must not do this, as 
the boys have none too much tobacco for 
themselves, and I thought I had broken her 
of it. But the other day there was an officer 
calling and she went out to look at his big 
car and admire the chaufeiir — she thought 
him so chic — and I heard her getting off 
her " Got cigarette? " When he had gone I 
reproached her, and she looked grieved as 
she explained that she did not want his ciga- 
rettes — besides he did not have any. When 
[ 248 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

I desired to know why she had taken the 
trouble to ask if she did not want any she 
replied: '' Histoire de parler anglais!'' 

I thought that was lovely. 

I have an idea that the American Marines 
are not coming at all. There is a tremen- 
dous activity everywhere about us. You 
know, now, since the Germans reached the 
Marne again, we are not only zone des 
armees but we are arriere front, and never 
since the war began has the military move- 
ment about us been so constant. There are 
hours of the day when we simply cannot 
drive on our roads at all. All this means 
something, and, although I am going up to 
see the first real war celebration of the Four- 
teenth, I am going with a feeling that if 
something does not happen while I am gone, 
something will all the same happen soon. 

You realize, of course, that the next move 
settles our fate here. So long as the Ger- 
mans hold Soissons Paris is menaced, so long 
as they hold Chateau-Thierry the Marne 
valley is open to them. In either case our 
situation is critical. If the next move sees 
the Germans not only held, but pushed back, 
all danger to us here is, I am convinced, 
ended forever. 

But whichever way it turns is only locally 
important. Even if Paris is taken, even if it 
were possible to wipe out the French army, 
Germany's situation would not be changed 

[ 249 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

and never will be until she has wiped out the 
States. But every time I think about it the 
condition of France seems to me the more 
remarkable — all her men in the war or in 
war works, all the rescued population of the 
invaded districts from the frontier to the 
Somme and the Marne crowded into the 
south and west, and millions of Allied sol- 
diers from other countries, with thousands 
of Red Cross workers of all sorts, and hun- 
dreds of thousands of German prisoners, and 
here we are trying to lead a normal life, and 
coming precious near to doing it. And 
strangest of all, the majority of the people 
are more sane and happier than they have 
ever been. It is a great disaster. Of course 
it is. But we are all terribly alive, and it is 
not at such epochs that the world ever 
bothers itself to write symposiums on " Is 
Life Worth Living?", or speculates about 
^^ La Lutte pour la Fie.^^ 

Thanks for the newspaper clipping con- 
taining the pen portrait of me sitting on the 
wheelbarrow on the platform of the railway 
station at Esbly, on the day I went to Paris 
to carry my trunk, '^ with tears in my voice if 
not in my eyes." I am afraid that touch was 
the pretty young journalist's poetic license — 
she was pretty, you know. I am sorry the 
picture struck you as " pitiful and pathetic." 
I really am. Come now, what would you 
have had me do, sitting there among that 
[ 250 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

crowd of women leading children by one 
hand and lugging such of their poor effects 
as they had saved? You surely could not 
have expected that I would do a song and 
dance simply because, up to date, my home 
was safe. I was sad. How could I have 
been anything else ? Only a few hours before 
I had seen a poor flying woman carrying a 
dead baby in her arms, and among other ob- 
jects of my journey to Paris was a visit to the 
American Red Cross to beg some layettes for 
newborn babies in our commune — eynigrees 
of course — and stuff to make underclothes 
for women and children who had arrived 
with only what they had on their backs, for 
in that retreat of over thirty miles, from 
Noyon to Chateau-Thierry, betAveen May 
27th and June 4th these poor people were 
taken by surprise and had no time to save 
more than their skins and what covered them. 
Will that explain the "tears in my voice" If 
they were there? 

You ask me for news of Mademoiselle 
Henriette. Is it possible that in all the ex- 
citement of the days since the retreat of 
March 21 I forgot to tell you that she had 
gone? She is at Salonlca. She left here in 
March — the very first if I remember. Any- 
way I have looked up her first note — a post- 
card—from Toulon, dated March 3, m 
which she says : 

"We sail to-morrow. It is Sunday, and 

[ 251 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

I have just attended mass on deck. It was 
pretty and very impressive. Standing in the 
midst of officers, soldiers and sailors, I had 
once more the illusion that I too was on 
active service, and felt once more at home. 
We are sailing without escort, under the pro- 
tection simply of the Red Cross, although we 
have on board a neutral — an officer of the 
Spanish navy." 

Odd that I should have forgotten to tell 
you this at the time. She is now at Zeiten- 
lick, where the service is very hard; but it 
is interesting and she is at an age to enjoy 
novel experiences, even when they have to be 
paid for with mighty hard work. 



[ 252 ] 



XXIX 

July 22, igi8 

This has been such a week of mixed emo- 
tions that I have not been able to settle down 
to write. 

I got your cable of congratulation on the 
" great victory " last night. I shall say what 
I think of that later. It may surprise you 
to know that I am not in the humour. We 
are calm and confident here. We are tiot 
throwing our hats in the air yet. The ten- 
sion has been terrible, and It is a comfort to 
know that to-night there is not a German on 
the south bank of the Marne, and we hope 
they have crossed It for the last time. 

I wrote you, if I remember, the night be- 
fore the Fourteenth, when I was preparing 
to go up to town to help celebrate the great 
day. I went and I enjoyed it. 

It was drizzly weather, and when, at nine, 
I prepared to go out and find a place so near 
the Porte Dauphlne that I could see the Al- 
lied armies enter the city from the Bois, I 
found that no one wanted to go with me, on 
the plea that It would be prettier to see it 
with my eyes than go out in a crowd plus a 

[ 253 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

drizzle, which of course was flattering but 
covered a lazy spirit. 

Luckily it stopped raining, and the air was 
fresh, the sky a little overcast, and there was 
no dust. It was an ideal day for comfort. 

I stay in Paris only five minutes' walk 
from the entrance to the Bois at the end of 
the Avenue du Bois. I never saw the city 
look more beautiful. Nothing had been 
done to conceal or disfigure its beauty. 
There were no seats put up along the route, 
and the only tribune was on the east side of 
the Avenue — near the Porte — just an en- 
closed space hung in the traditional red, with 
reserved seats for the President, the diplo- 
matic corps and the city's guests. 

On the same side of the Avenue, a little 
nearer the Porte, was the colour-stand. All 
along the street on both sides were the chairs 
that are always there, only more of them, 
and a simple wooden barrier behind them 
prevented people from pushing into the space 
thus reserved. There was no bunting on 
any of the houses — nothing in the way of 
decoration, but the flags of all the Allied 
nations. 

Every inch of space was taken. When I 
arrived at my place, just behind the colour- 
stand, the presidential party had already ar- 
rived, and I passed behind a long line of the 
most wonderful automobiles I ever saw (and 
did not much wonder at hearing some one 

[ 254 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

remark, "Well, it seems there is still some 
essence in Paris! "). 

Just then the head of the procession began 
to issue from the trees of the Bois, and ap- 
proach the Porte. The light was just right 
for it, and the forest of moving bayonets 
made a wonderful picture, which I shall 
never forget. Most of the people in the 
great crowd had evidently, like me, never 
seen many of the armies, though most of 
them had, like me, I suppose, seen individual 
soldiers of all the Allies. I am sure the 
American papers have given you a full de- 
scription of the great cortege in which the 
armies of all the Allies-in-arms for the 
world's liberty marched for the first time in 
the city the whole world loves, and which 
even her enemies envy, and doubtless, by the 
time you get this, the cinemas will have 
shown it moving on the screen, for I counted 
almost as many machines at work as there 
were nations in the show. But what they 
cannot give you is the colour, which was at- 
mospherically French, and how much that 
says, you who love France know, nor can it 
give you the thrills. I simply adored seeing 
the flag of each nation approach, and the 
colours on the Allied stand dip to receive 
each nation's salute, and the soldiers in the 
crowd as far as I could see rising to atten- 
tion with their hands at salute as the flags 
passed. 

[ 255 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

Along the barrier, behind the seats, sol- 
diers, mostly American, British and Italian, 
who were not marching, stood erect braced 
like bareback riders in their perilous posi- 
tion, and they managed to stand rigid as 
statues to salute the colours — a fine ath- 
letic display. 

The handsomest men in the line were, to 
my mind, the Italians. Their greenish grey 
uniform is a beautiful colour, and their hats, 
higher in form than those of the other Allies, 
are terribly smart. But the sturdy Serbs and 
the Poles with their new flag, and the Czechs, 
who sang as they marched, were greeted with 
thundering cheers. As the Americans were 
the clou of the Fourth of July, the British 
carried off the honours of the Fourteenth. 
They made a wonderful showing, so trim, 
marching as if they had never done anything 
but parade duty, they who have fought like 
the bulldogs they are. There were English 
and Irish, Scotch and Welsh, there were 
Australians, New Zealanders, the armies of 
Egypt and India and South Africa. It was 
a fine show, and none of them were more 
cheered than the tall ruddy men in kilts 
marching to the crooning of the pipes. It 
was so hard to realize that this was a demon- 
stration in the midst of a war, at a time when 
the enemy was nearer the fortifications of 
the city than they had been in forty-six 
months, in a city which had known forty days 

[ 256 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

of bombardment by a German cannon, and 
could not be sure that the forty-first might 
not come before the procession disbanded. 

It was this spirit that I had gone out to see 
and I had seen it. 

This was the sort of experience one cannot 
hope to get more than once in a fortunate 
lifetime, the sort of thing that centuries have 
not seen, and centuries may never see again. 
It was the very essence of the spirit which is 
to carry a righteous cause to victory, and 
which future ages will have good reason to 
bless. 

As a detachment of French cavalry 
brought up the rear — for the French divi- 
sions had been scattered through the line, 
acting as escort to their comrades-in-arms, 
which I thought a pretty idea — the crowd 
broke up quietly, and, while the echoes of the 
cheers came back to me, receding with the 
music as the cortege continued its route, I 
walked slowly back to the house, strangely 
comforted. 

We all knew that we were on the eve of 
another German offensive, and with the con- 
sciousness of the great bound forward of 
two of the previous ones, it was impossible 
to be quite free from nervousness, or from 
the feeling that Paris was in danger. But 
we had seen the men who were to meet the 
attack, and seen nowhere anything but cour- 
age, so why should we worry? 

[ 257 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

Personally, I can say that nothing has 
done me so much good as the two look-ins 
I have taken in Paris in the past ten days, 
with the men who are defending her march- 
ing through her streets. 

On that day, no more than on the Fourth, 
did any of the things the pessimists prophe- 
sied come true. The Grosse Bertha did not 
get to work. The night was quiet, — no air 
raid. 

I stayed over until the morning of the six- 
teenth. I had to. I had a few necessary 
errands to do. I arrived in Paris on Satur- 
day after many shops — now having what 
they called ''''la semaine anglaise^^ — were 
closed, and Monday, the day after the Four- 
teenth, was a holiday. 

On Monday — the fifteenth — just before 
two o'clock, "bang" went the Big Bertha 
again, after a silence of three weeks. The 
first shot went harmlessly Into the Seine, just 
missing a great mark, and after a lapse of 
about three hours it began again and put in 
several shells before dark. No one had any 
doubt that this presaged the new offensive, 
and we impatiently awaited the papers the 
next morning, which announced simply the 
fact that the Germans had attacked again on 
the front from Soissons, which they still 
hold, to Reims, which, although they have 
destroyed It, they have not been able to take 
since they were driven out in the battle of 

[ 258 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

the Marne — that is to say, the nearest point 
to us. 

Needless to tell you that I could not get 
back home quickly enough, although the little 
news we got seemed to be good. The Allies 
were holding them. This time the Germans 
had not been able to take Foch's army by 
surprise, as they had done in March and 
May. The attack, in extent, vigour and 
material seemed to be quite as formidable as 
that of March for Amiens. 

Amelie met me at the station, and almost 
before I was out of the train she told me that 
the Americans had gone. The rest of the 
division, as I had foreseen, never came at all, 
and a camion came for those stranded on 
our hill, and carried them away. 

She announced that the movement on our 
roads had been terrible for over forty-eight 
hours. The little road passing my gate 
had seen three hundred camions dashing by 
towards the canal on the day before, — the 
day the battle began. No sleep had been 
possible for two nights. She had had great 
difficulty In getting to the station, as the 
route Nationale was closed to all civilians. 
She had come down by the cart-track across 
the fields. 

I lost some time at the station — my bag- 
gage had not come. It was not personal bag- 
gage — that is still waiting in Paris, to go to 
Versailles, if I have to. It was only a sack 

[ 259 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

of sugar — oh, so precious! — and a case 
of condensed milk from an American rescue 
work, for the little refugee children and the 
old people. I had checked it the day before 
to save time. The station is always so 
crowded at train-time, and one has to wait 
so interminably to be weighed that I took 
advantage of the holiday, when I had noth- 
ing to do, to get it off. Incidentally, I am 
distressed about it, as it has not turned up 
yet, and that is six days ago. But on the day 
I returned I was too occupied with other 
anxieties to worry. Besides, it would have 
been a heavy load for Ninette to drag up 
the hill. 

When we turned out from the station and 
crossed the Morin, the road looked clear, 
and after the guard had examined my papers 
— they seem to put a new gazrd every day, 
so it always has to be done — Amelie fool- 
ishly decided to try going up the grande 
route. We had not gone ten steps when a 
soldier with a red flag appeared in front of 
us, and turned us back, and we had to come 
up the ruelle. It is a very steep, very rough 
path, deeply rutted by farm-wagons and 
mowing-machines. The day was very hot. 
Ninette struggled along until I finally de- 
cided that, even in the blazing sun, I could 
climb on foot easier than I could sit behind 
her, and watch her strain and tug, so Amelie 
and I both got out and walked up, and I took 
[ 260 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

in the news at the various stations we made 
to rest. The Americans had come to say 
good bye. They had said a lot of things, 
and she was sad because she had not under- 
stood a word. Meaux had been bombarded 
Monday and rather seriously damaged. 
Otherwise everything was as usual. 

During the next two days the news was 
not bad, and then on Saturday came word 
that Foch had launched his counter-attack, 
and that it looked brilliantly successful. By 
Sunday morning we knew that the Germans 
had recrossed the Marne at Dormans, just 
south-east of Chateau-Thierry, hotly pur- 
sued by the Americans, — not a live German, 
unless he was prisoner, left on the south 
bank of the river. Every day since then the 
Germans have retreated. It is slow, but it 
is hopeful. 

Ever since we have lived again on the map. 
Although we do not yet feel like calling it 
"a glorious victory" as you do, we do feel 
that never again will the Germans cross the 
Marne. If the Allies have been able to 
thrust them back now, when the Americans 
are not yet all ready, how can it be possible 
that we shall not hold them when we are 
getting stronger every day? We may be 
wrong, for one thing we do know, the Ger- 
mans are still strong, and they will fight a 
terrible battle. They have still thirty unused 
divisions, and ever so much more artillery 

[ 261 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

than we have, and a spy system that is amaz- 
ing. They advanced from the Chemin des 
Dames in May to the Marne, thirty miles in 
six days. It has taken us nearly a week to 
push them back, mile by mile, a third of the 
way, so our relief is great, but our joy is 
cautious and well-contained. 

I was speaking of the slowness of the re- 
treat and the economy of it, so far as the 
Germans were concerned, this morning, to 
an officer, and he replied : 

" It is better than we dared hope. If, be- 
fore winter sets in, we can succeed in pushing 
them back to the strong positions in which 
they started in March, we shall feel more 
than satisfied, and hopeful, as by the spring 
the States will be really ready, and we shall 
be as strong as they are — at least — in ar- 
tillery, and surely stronger in the air, and 
then we '11 finish them off, but it will still 
take time. They are mighty strong, and it is 
death we propose to deal out to them." 

I imagine that this is a pretty fair state- 
ment of the situation. It makes me shiver 
sometimes to see how Immediately hopeful 
you are. I have been that way myself, and 
I know what getting over it means. 

Of course, a thousand things may happen 
— the morale may break in Germany. But 
those who know both the people and the 
country say it never will. So my present 
prayer is that the interim may be useful for 
[ 262 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

the spreading of the conviction that this 
war must not stop when Germany is ready 
to make concessions, not even when she is 
ready to evacuate the lands she has seized, 
not even when she begins to whimper and 
regret — not until she is beaten to her knees, 
and not even then until she has been pun- 
ished, and punished so severely that she can- 
not recover quickly, and left with a mark on 
her which she cannot conceal, not even by 
her most clever camouflage. She is a crimi- 
nal nation. At large she is a danger to every 
nation and to every people on the face of the 
earth. 

Now don't, I entreat you, reply that you 
have heard me preach prison reform. I 
have. I don't, of course, believe in treating 
even criminals like wild beasts — yet I don't 
know. At least I do believe in a restraint 
which protects the community. I never did, 
nor could, advocate pardon and liberty for 
jail-birds of marked criminal tendencies. 
The stigmata of crime are very persistent, 
and Germany bears the mark. Why should 
one cherish illusions for a race which one 
dares not harbour for the individual? 

In an age which proudly calls itself civil- 
ized — whatever that may mean — Germany 
has waged a war such as even barbarous 
times never knew. It has not been a war 
of legitimate slaughter, which would have 
been terrible enough in a world of to-day's 

[ 263 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

aspirations and pretension. It has been a 
war of violating women, abusing children, 
murdering inoffensive civilians, a war of ra- 
pine and wilful destruction, of breaking 
every law of the God whom they arrogantly 
claim, of every law man has made for the 
safeguarding of the community, a war of lies 
and cunning, by a people who claim the whole 
world, and deliberately deny the right of 
even existence to every one not born German, 
who arrogate to themselves the right to sin, 
and deny the right to live to all other races. 

We are told that before the offensive of 
March twenty-first was launched the disci- 
plinary laws which have long governed 
armies were all suspended by order of the 
German Commander-in-chief, and that the 
sack of all France on the hoped-for line of 
march from St. Quentin to the sea, and from 
the Chemin des Dames to Paris, was prom- 
ised the German soldiers as their reward for 
victory, and what really happened seems to 
bear out the truth of the abominable state- 
ment. From St. Quentin to the Somme, and 
from the Chemin des Dames to the Marne, 
as well as the time permitted, they accom- 
plished the object. The amount of booty 
they carried off was tremendous, and if every- 
thing did not fall as loot to the army, they at 
least achieved a destruction as complete as 
possible. 

Naturally I did not see this with my own 

[ 264 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

eyes, but I have it on the testimony of sol- 
diers who have come back from the devas- 
tated country, and whose word I have no rea- 
son to doubt. They tore to bits tapestries 
which they had not time to destroy. They 
smashed mirrors. They made firewood of 
the furniture in the humbler houses which 
was not good enough to send to Germany. 
They smashed dishes. If they did not de- 
stroy crops which they could not carry off, or 
if they left a pin anywhere it was only be- 
cause in neither of their great pushes did 
they achieve their objective, and in both 
they met a resistance more tenacious than 
they expected, and which cost them dear, so 
that in certain places they were unable to ac- 
complish under bombardment a destruction 
as thorough as they planned or had the will 
to do. 

It is on things like this on which our minds 
fasten — for the flesh is weak and shrinks 
from such suffering as all that entails on the 
individual. Yet that is not Germany's worst 
crime. She has attacked the fundamental 
virtues towards which the world has been 
marching for centuries, and for which it has 
fought and bled many times, — the rights of 
peoples to choose their own fates; the rights 
of the individual to freedom; the hopes that 
free peoples have cherished of seeing the 
world become honest, and she has tried to 
bend all the world to the slavery of force. 

[ 265 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

In that lies her greatest crime, and it is for 
that abominable crime that she has to suffer, 
and must suffer, unless the world is to be 
thrown back a thousand years. 

After all it is ideas that make history, not 
facets. From the beginning Man has shed 
his blood for ideas and opinions. They 
make history. That has marked the passing 
of people, of habits and customs, but the 
ideas have persisted. From the beginning — 
or rather in the short span of which we know 
anything — man has always had to fight and 
bleed for his ideas. Perhaps he always will. 
Who knows ? Considering how little the ma- 
jority understand this it is wonderful how 
heroically they do it. 

As an example of that: the other day I 
met a young American officer — a lieutenant 
from the South — and in course of the con- 
versation he remarked that France could 
" never recover herself," and when I smiled 
and shook my head at him, he added with a 
great deal of feeling: 

" But you have not been out there. You 
have no idea of the destruction. There is 
not one stone on another. It is terrible. 
When this war is over, and all the costs 
counted, you will see that France is finished." 

I had the folly to remark that all that 
would soon arrange itself, and that I counted 
as unimportant in the great scheme the mate- 
rial destruction, and was only concerned in 
[ 266 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

the spiritual side of It all. Of course he did 
not understand. Why should he? So I 
thought It not worth while to state that per- 
sonally I had a deep regret for every stone 
thrown down and a deeper sorrow for every 
young life so bravely given. He looked at 
me as If I was crazy. I suppose he thought 
me a white-haired old crank. Is It not true 
of all of us who read our history straight — 
or as straight as our limited Intelligences will 
let us — that, though the life of each genera- 
tion is made enthralling by the personal 
struggle, by new ways of making money, new 
ways of spending It, new ways of living and 
new wa^^s of dressing and eating and amus- 
ing ourselves, these are not the vital things. 
If they were, there would have been few 
wars, in spite of adventurers, camp-followers 
and free-lances. 

It is no palliation of the offence that the 
war the Germans forced on the world, with 
a criminal intent, has made of the fighting 
nations of the defence a people who will be 
all the finer for the struggle. It does not 
lighten Germany's sin that the world will 
have a nobler future, and living Itself be the 
more worth while, for the serried effort the 
Allies have made. It Is nothing to Ger- 
many's credit that, in the shoulder-to-shoul- 
der and heart-to-heart sacrifices, and the 
heroically borne great grief, old differences 
have been forgotten and a better understand- 

[ 267 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

ing achieved, that out of her sin good will 
come. She has done her most devilish to pre- 
vent that. The nations fighting out there in 
front of us to-day — on that long line from 
the Swiss frontier to the North Sea, and with 
stiff lips and brave eyes offering their best 
beloved on the altars of right, justice and 
liberty — must not be merciful except to 
a repentant sinner. That Germany will 
never be. It is not possible to her Kultur. 
A whining, lying, hypocritical — In fact a 
camoufle — penitent she may be; more than 
that is and will be for generations impossible 
for a nation and people bred to believe that 
what a people has strength to do. It has the 
right to do. If after all the experience the 
Allies have had they can be tricked Into ex- 
tending pity to a beaten Germany, why then 
they have fought and bled in vain. I sup- 
pose there are good Germans. Well, God 
must pity them, but they must, for the time, 
suffer for the crimes of their race as Innocent 
children suffer for the sins of their fathers, 
and for the same reason; so why should man 
be foolishly lenient when neither the Al- 
mighty nor nature Is ? 

We thought Belgium's tragedy could not 
be capped until Servia's capped it, and I am 
Inclined to believe that Germany's deliberate 
debauching of Russia and her conscious mu- 
tilation of the soul of a people Is her worst 
crime, for it may have arrested for centuries 

[ 268 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

the slow and hoped-for evolution of a nation 
and a race in which we all may have had too 
much faith, but which, now that chaos has 
been dealt out to it, may be long in recover- 
ing, because one sees nowhere in sight yet 
the national hero who might wave a magic 
wand of personal love and magnetic patriot- 
ism and still the waters the Huns have 
troubled. The Allies have a duty — to aid 
in conjuring that spirit, but it can never be 
done while there is a German foot on Russian 
soil. 

You ask In one of your late letters if I 
have been reading Cheradame on the " East- 
ern Question." Of course I have. His ar- 
raignment of facts Is appalling. I own that. 
But It seems rather a pity that, while his sta- 
tistics have tended to terrorize an easily ter- 
rorized people, some one does not add a 
footnote to remind the world, not only that 
there Is a spirit in this great war — it has a 
soul as well as facts — and that if the Allies 
have seemed to neglect the eastern to devote 
themselves to the western frontier it must 
not be forgotten that, with all the forces they 
have, they have barely been able to hold the 
Huns at bay there. Besides, the vital thing 
is to defeat Germany, and It is immaterial 
where that Is done so that it is done, and it is 
far from done yet. When Germany is well 
licked, and only then, will it be possible to 
deal with the races concerned in what has 

[ 269 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

for so long been known as the Eastern Ques- 
tion, which really dates back to the seven- 
teenth century, when Austria started on her 
" eastern route," if it does not go far back 
of that to the fall of Constantinople and the 
entrance of the Turk into Europe. With this 
great massacre ended, with Germany weak- 
ened and punished, and the Turks driven out, 
the Eastern Question can be dealt with by 
other means than a sword; and I dare say it 
will be found that, delivered from Prussian 
intrigue, the victorious Allies, with the power 
and the will to do it, will meet with aid and 
not opposition from the people concerned. 
But just as long as Germany is left with 
power to interfere such dreams can never be 
realized. Imagine the mentality of a people 
who can be lulled to sleep with Kaiser BilFs 
" Peace Talk," who can even tolerate a 
leader who states that the Allies are respon- 
sible for the continuation of the war because 
they refuse to stop fighting to protect their 
homes and liberties by acknowledging them- 
selves beaten, pay the expenses of a war 
forced on them, and leave in the hands of the 
spoiler his loot in lands, subject peoples, and 
material ! 

After all the Kaiser made a mistake when 
he thought he was a second Napoleon I. 
Do you know what he is like? He is a 
reincarnation of Nabuchodonosor. Do read 
Chapters V and VI of the book of Judith in 

[ 270 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

the Apocrypha if you don't believe me. 
And the King of the Assyrians had his Hin- 
denburg, only even in those days of barbarity 
it did not occur to Holofernes to poison the 
wells and sources he seized when he set out 
to reduce Jerusalem. 

I suppose you will reply that this comes 
very ill from me, who have been saying that 
I was tired of talk, and only wanted acts — 
words after achievements. Only a fool 
never changes her mind. I can't be really a 
fool, I change mine so often. 

I note also that you object to my saying 
" dirty Germans " so often. That is only be- 
cause I am becoming so very American — 
it's an ill war that brings about no good — 
ahem ! That 's all right. You may laugh. 
Besides, I supposed that you had heard the 
song the Amex boys brought over with them 
— a song which lists off what a soldier may 
expect each day In the week — shrapnel one 
day, then gas, then " over the top," down to 
the hospital on Saturday, and a funeral on 
Sunday, and each day's prayer is "Oh, you 
dirty Germans, I wish the same on you." 
Ever since I heard it in Paris we have never 
spoken of the Huns except as " dirty Ger- 
mans," and even Amelie can say It, and pre- 
fers it to "les sales Boches," — the usual 
French designation, and of which "dirty 
Germans" is a literal translation. 

Speaking of songs, I am told that the 

[ 271 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

Marines went *' over the top '* at Chateau- 
Thierry singing, " I want to go home, I am 
too young to die," and with cigarettes in 
their mouths. I don't vouch for that now, 
but it was told me by one of them, a sergeant 
who led the third wave over — thirty men. 
There were only two left with him when the 
mitrailleuse they encountered was silenced. 
But I can believe it. You ought to hear what 
the French say of the Amex boys, especially 
of how they fight when an assault becomes a 
hand-to-hand. They say that even when 
their ammunition is out, and their guns shot 
out of their hands, they use feet as well as 
fists, and rush it, heads down, as if in a foot- 
ball tussle. They assert that with experience 
they are going to make great soldiers. That 
emphasizes the blow at the German military 
ideas, doesn't it? 

I imagine that they have already dealt 
out a flush of surprises to the Germans. We 
have seen a large number of the prisoners here 
whom the Americans took — some of them 
not looking more than fifteen or sixteen years 
old. A few of them know a word or two of 
French, and when questioned about the 
Americans they said: ''' Me chants les Ameri- 
cains — mechants!'''' Aren't they wonder- 
ful? Strange people who feel the right to 
do the things they have done, and then 
think a soldier who fights back impolitely is 
'* mechanty 
[ 272 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

While I am writing this Amelie and Pere 
have gone to look at the big gang of pris- 
oners who have built our new double bridge, 
which crosses both the canal and the Marne 
at Mareuil, and the new road which will 
connect the route nationale with that to Com- 
piegne, well west of Meaux. I haven't seen 
it since it was begun, but they have been 
down several times and tell me it is very 
handsome. 



[ 273 ] 



XXX 

Remembrance Day, IQ18 
Well, we are entering on the fifth year 
of the war. We were pained in 19 14 when 
Kitchener prophesied a three years' war, and 
very cross when an American financier de- 
clared that It might last seven. I rather 
imagine five will settle It, but I am not 
prophesying. It is a long road still to the 
frontier. But to-day, when all the world, 
except Central Europe, is joining England 
In her solemn service of prayer, and the 
Allied chiefs are exchanging cables of hope 
and confidence, I may as well do my bit, by 
sending you my message. I feel especially 
Inspired to do it by the fact that your letter 
just received expresses some surprise at what 
you call my losing my nerve, in the first week 
In June. Did I? Do you know, I can't re- 
member. But you must know that the situa- 
tion here was desperate from March twenty- 
first up to Foch's counter-offensive on July 
eighteenth. When I say desperate I mean 
just that. 

Speaking of that time, I never told you 
that my famous sack of sugar never got here. 
By one of those errors that happen often, 
but by good luck never happened to me be- 

[ 274 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

fore, the cases I sent out from Paris on the 
morning of the fifteenth — the day the fifth 
offensive was launched — did not get put oft 
at Esbly, where our narrow-gauge Hne meets 
the main line, but went on to the end, which, 
as the Germans were across the Marne at 
that time at Dormans, was La Ferte-sous- 
Jouarre, the next station beyond Meaux, and 
only about eleven miles from here. That 
night the railway station was bombarded by 
the Germans and destroyed and the station- 
master killed. So my precious sugar was 
burned up. I mention the fact only as inter- 
esting, and because it may account for what 
you call my nervousness. I am perfectly 
sure that if ever I were condemned to die for 
a cause, the hours of waiting for the end 
would be — shall we say? — trying. 

But all that is changed, and one forgets 
easily. 

On Friday night, at eight o'clock, the 
Allies entered Soissons again, and the pillar 
of the German position for the march on 
Paris by the valley of the Oise is lost to 
them. With both the valley of the Marne 
and that of the Oise closed to the invader, 
Paris is again safe, and we are again calm, 
and draw a long breath of relief, even though 
we know that we must count it lucky if, be- 
fore winter, we can see the Huns back on 
the famous Siegfried line, from which they 
bounded last March, and to which they re- 

[ 275 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

treated in March of 191 7. There they will 
be in almost impregnable positions, behind a 
long line of veritable fortresses, and in much 
better winter quarters than the Allies. 

One of the prettiest things about this slow 
push forward, which is a victory, slow as it 
is, is the fact that every nation in arms for 
the Allied cause has taken part in it, and 
distinguished itself. 

Our boys, fresh and untried, have more 
than held their own. I had a letter yester- 
day from a Californian who is with the 
Foreign Legion, who writes: "Since I saw 
you we have been through two campaigns 
with our beloved division. The first gave 
us all the sensations of the agony of retreat, 
the second all the exhilaration of a victory. 
And more than that, we have had the thrill 
of seeing our American troops fight side by 
side with the hardened legionnaires and make 
goody 

One more consoling thing. I have often 
asked myself, since I saw another war winter 
looming in sight, how our boys were going 
to stand the rough billets to which the poiliis 
are accustom*ed, — so different from the 
camp quarters of their months of training 
at home, in England and even here. An 
American officer, who was here yesterday, 
tells me that, although the fighting regiments 
between the Marne and Fisme, which the 
boys from the States retook by assault, are 

[ 276 ] 



The Peak of the Load 

cantonned m an absolutely destroyed coun- 
try, under the roughest conditions, they take 
it gaily, — he has never heard the v«ry 
smallest complaining. 

So here we are at the beginning of the 
Year V. 

We know that Germany is still strong. 
We cannot close our eyes to the knowledge 
that her death-struggle will be full of fear- 
fulness. Still, with the days shortening — I 
had to light up last night at half-past seven 
in the salon, the first time I have had a light 
except in my bedroom since the last of May, 
which means winter will be here before we 
know it — we are really gayer than at the 
opening of any winter since the war began. 
It is not wholly because we are hardened to 
it. It is because the dawn of the new era 
begins to glow on the horizon of the future. 
We are moving slowly towards new days, 
for the world that was has gone, and the 
special colour of the days before the war 
can never be again. My Remembrance Day 
prayer is that the spirit moving over the 
fighting-line to-day and flinging its wide 
wings over the heads and hearts of all of us 
behind the lines may persist and make the 
nations as fine in the great after-the-war 
work ahead of them, as they have been noble, 
sacrificing, loyal to one another, and patriotic 
to their own flags in the great fight. 

[ 277 ] 



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